Imagine how cool it would be if we could transfer money digitally in a blink of a second without using internet services at all. Leave the internet without even using smartphones. Sounds fictionary and implausible, right? Well, someone’s imagination is in others’ reality. This is the motto of “ToneTag” as a company.
What does the company do?
ToneTag leverages the medium of sound and sound waves to carry out transactions. It builds its software and hardware integrations using sound waves as a method of interaction. But why is this needed at all?
Here’s the thing, while several developments have been made on the digital front, these still leave out an irrefutable percentage of the population that still exists without a smartphone and is devoid of access to an Internet connection. To put this into perspective, around 36% of the nation’s population was projected to have a smartphone by 2018. This left a significant chunk of the people, indicating how feature-phone users still dominate the Indian masses. These figures and facts signify how the digital payments sector, heavily based on the infrastructure mentioned above, is still inadequate in serving more than 50 percent of the Indian population.
A company like ToneTag wishes to reach out to most people in the country. How?
Soundwave technology provides a highly viable alternative for digital payments, taking away the reliance on infrastructural factors such as smartphones and the internet. Electronic data capture machines are devised with the basic ability to gather and transmit sonic waves; soundwave technology uses this feature to its maximum advantage by furnishing an alternative communication medium between the customer and the merchant/service provider at the point of sale.
The vendor’s payments device transmits secured and encrypted data through a unique sound wave in this technology. The customer’s phone obtains and converts into analogous signals, further responding to validate and thus fulfilling the transaction process, all on an instant basis and with real-time acknowledgment.
Too much to grasp? Don’t worry; let’s understand this with an example.
You arrive at the Cashier desk to pay for your purchase. The cashier punches in all the items and then offers you the sound for purchase details (more like an Invoice) through the Payment Terminal (with the machine speaking); the Mobile app will listen to these sound waves and settles the payment using the Mobile App/Wallet. A receipt is displayed on the screen, and the payment is paid.
The payment method looks similar to any other mobile-based transaction where you have a Mobile App (Wallet) that stores the funds in it. Instead (or in addition) of using QR codes, the Mobile App provides the Sound Waves as an alternate method to communicate with the Payment Terminal.
ToneTag is a company that provides sound wave services to mobile-based payments applications. One must note that the mobile-based applications are partners of ToneTag and not its competitors.
ToneTag was established in September 2013 by founder and current CEO Kumar Abhishek. Together with co-founder Vivek Singh, they started a research project on enabling small payments through mobile. The research was followed by experimentation with various alternate payment technologies. In September 2017, Infosys partnered with ToneTag to allow contactless payments applications. Currently, ToneTag is the largest soundwave technology network in the world.
And the good news? ToneTag is backed by Amazon, Mukesh Ambani, and Mastercard is now ready to go beyond payments. The company said it plans to launch the service in around 50,000 villages and small towns, wherein people can use voice in their local dialect to complete a UPI transaction.
But is sound-based payment safe?
As Economic Times quote,
Soundwave-based payments are entirely secure, which can be a relief amidst the rising incidents of cyber frauds and security. Relatively inexpensive to deploy, soundwave technology holds the potential to create major transformational disruptions in the digital payment space.
So yeah, this innovation is groundbreaking and can reach the entire population of the country.
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Interesting Facts about Payments
- QR Code scanning has a 40% failure rate, research shows.
- ToneTag model runs with 32 frequencies all around the world.
- With the current technology on ToneTag, users can withdraw cash from ATMs and perform transactions through any channel (wallet or banking app) of their choice. The transfers are done in as little as 3 seconds.
- The current partners of ToneTag include- ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, FreeCharge, YES Bank, Bank of Baroda, Airtel, Amazon, First Data, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Reliance, Shoppers Stop, Astro, and Hoopoun.
Global News from all around the World
- The Pandora Papers leak is enormous, with about 2.94 TeraBytes of Data and more than 12 sources.
- 1,25,000 gallons of oil have spilled in the pacific ocean near Canada.
- Government proposes to withdraw Rs. Thirteen thousand crores demand spectrum rights usage charges.
- Ola has a bought a Geo-Spatial startup, GeoSpoc, ahead of its IPO.
- Reports say that only four days’ worth of coal reserves are left in India. It might face a severe shortage.
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