UPI, BNPL, AI Will Drive The Future Of Digital Payments In India: Ezeepay CEO

Ezeepay, a leading fintech company focused on driving financial inclusion across rural and semi-urban India, is charting a path for sustainable growth through innovation and regulatory compliance. “Investment in regulatory compliance plays a crucial role in growing the business in the long run,” says Shams Tabrej, CEO of Ezeepay, in an exclusive interaction with Bizz Buzz.

He emphasizes the importance of building scalable, secure infrastructure, boosting financial literacy, and maintaining user trust through transparency and proactive fraud prevention. Tabrej also highlights how AI is reshaping fintech operations by improving customer service, fraud detection, and personalization. Reflecting on Ezeepay’s expansion strategies, he discusses the company’s tech-focused hiring, merchant engagement at scale, and the disciplined mindset needed to navigate uncertainty in a highly regulated industry

As fintech continues to grow, what factors do you see as critical for sustainable business expansion?

Sustainable business growth for any fintech endeavour hinges on a few variables. Investment in regulatory compliance plays a crucial role in growing the business in the long run. Building a scalable and secure infrastructure ensures that it remains reliable as users come in bunches. Financial inclusion, particularly for the underserved, can stimulate change while on the way to growing the broader market. While cybersecurity and fraud detection are immensely pivotal for sustaining users' trust in an increasingly digitized world, creating transparency around partnerships and investing in user awareness will be key while navigating these shifts in the future. Above all, responsible innovation and operational resilience will define the next phase of sustainable growth for Fintech.

What are the most persistent barriers to financial access in rural and semi-urban India today?

In India, financial access in rural and semi-urban areas has improved tremendously, although there are a few economic barriers that persist. An extremely limited digital infrastructure with intermittent internet connectivity has an adverse impact on service delivery. Additionally, gaps in awareness regarding financial products and digital tools limit the adoption of these platforms, primarily among first-time users. Obstacles like language and literacy prolong the onboarding and usage process, while the trust of the common man in formal financial settings is still maturing in some areas; as such obstacles may also provide lucrative opportunities to innovate with simpler solutions and multilingual support, improve last-mile findability, and advance financial literacy. These hurdles can be addressed through concerted action among stakeholders to contribute positively to a more inclusive and resilient financial ecosystem across the country.

How are new technologies like AI shaping day-to-day operations in fintech?

Artificial intelligence has now become the most important part of every Fintech operation today, transforming inefficient and intellectual processes into routine work. It has introduced the automation of customer services, simplification of onboarding, and efficiency in fraudulent detection by recognizing unreal patterns in real-time scenarios. AI-driven analyses have improved the decision-making spectrum from credit scoring to transaction monitoring, thus enabling faster and more accurate handling of responses. In addition, AI can help personalize services to individuals in rural and semi-urban areas even when data is extremely low, making services easily accessible to these users. Such a promise of better things to come—in terms of scale as well as increasing trust -- is making the integration of AI work for efficiency faster and responsiveness in most fintech dramas today.

What are the pros and cons of bootstrapping in a high-growth industry like yours?

In growing industries like fintech, significant trade-offs characterize sizable learning and advantages in bootstrapping. It has its virtues, namely, the discipline you will have to practice to sharpen and focus on profitability and a much more intensive learning about customer needs- as every spend must be justified. It is also believed that bootstrapping enables a business to exercise maximum control over its direction because of a lack of outside pressure. Nonetheless, scaling up fast without taking external funding is probably the greatest challenge in a competitive market that believes speed and capital go hand in hand, as this can stifle hiring, product development, or expansion. A well-built bootstrap can, however, take a company far, especially if matched with timing, as it can give solid preparations for sustainable business growth in the long term, when funding eventually becomes inevitable.

How do you approach partner or merchant engagement at scale?

Partner and merchant engagement has always to be consistent and adaptive at scale as we are focusing on those investing in systems to support the growing dialogue rather than the one-time onboarding. Thus, we invest in real-time support, localized communication, and feedback loops that capture ground-level insights. We also try to keep our processes simple and transparent, as complexity is often a barrier in the environments in which we operate. Our engagement strategy is designed to be repetitive as we listen, adapt, and respond. At scale, it is not so much about central control as it is more about enabling regional teams and partners to operate with the autonomy they need while aligning on shared goals and outcomes.

What specific outcomes are you hoping to achieve with your recent tech-focused hiring and infrastructure expansion?

In the recent efforts in technology-based hiring and infrastructure development, the intent is to increase the speed, reliability, and relevance of solutions built for the people we serve in the rural and semi-urban space. Another focus is on shortening development timelines and building tools that are simpler for users while keeping the intelligent workings at the backend. Another key consequence of these efforts will be to create an active feedback mechanism so that tech teams interact better with field operations, and we can iterate our products based on actual usage. Overall, it's making our systems more agile and sensitive, and we are starting to lay down the foundations for long-term scalability.

How do you assess readiness before entering a new geographic market?

Before entering a new geographic market, we determine readiness through a mixture of demand-side considerations and operational feasibility. We start by mapping out the financial behaviours and needs of local communities, like how they transact, what gaps are there, and whether there is a clear value that our services can bring forth. On the supply side, we study the possible strength of probable local partners, the existence of an infrastructure, and the regulatory environment. Additionally, we ensure proper readiness, meaning getting the right local team in place with appropriate support structures and adaptability. Rather than accelerating into expansion, we are testing and learning to ensure that we can maintain the standards of service quality and engagement before scaling more.

What precautions should fintechs take to stay ahead of fraud and maintain customer trust?

In fintech risk management, a balance has to be struck between proactive technology deployment and sound operational discipline. One important safeguard is the sustained investment in real-time monitoring systems, which can notice anything unusual on their radars before risks escalate. Yet, technology has its limitations, as do internal audits, staff training, and clear escalation procedures, while they must be tracking changes in the methods used by fraudsters and adjusting their risk models to keep pace.

From the viewpoint of trust, transparency, being honest about an issue, and communicating well with the concerned users is essential. If there is a problem, it will create credibility to last a lifetime. Data personal privacy practices must have a good scope for being put up in such activities and not merely in the policy but in the conduct of daily operations. Then again, customer education plays a big factor, as empowering users to know, spot, and avoid risks is a co-responsibility and often the first line of defense.

In your view, what does the future of digital payments in India look like?

The potential for change in digital payments in India seems to be enormous in the years to come, driven by modern technological advances and the changing behaviour of consumers. The UPI has already created an entirely new space concerning domestic transactions and is now working to launch UPI International after addressing compliance issues around cross-border payments.

Another such major emerging area is the partnerships between fintech companies and the Reserve Bank of India, which intend to dovetail the e-rupee with conventional financial services to increase transaction efficiency and security.

Artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies will also further strengthen the digital payments ecosystem by enhancing fraud detection and securing transactions. Furthermore, the 'Buy Now, Pay Later' (BNPL) space is rapidly evolving and is expected to change how consumers spend by offering them flexible payment options.

What mindset or habits have helped you navigate uncertainty as a startup founder?

A startup founder must navigate uncertainty with a comfortable mindset with ambiguity. One key habit has been a strong bias for action; that is, using active decision-making and informed opinions based on available data rather than waiting for perfect clarity for the decision. The second thing is that the signal very often gets mixed up with noise, which means the founder must learn to step back from situations that appear to develop rather quickly to differentiate what counts in the long term.

Being flexible and resilient within planning, as well as with people, has been equally important. It prepares them for several outcomes, building adaptability within teams, not just efficiency. Continuous reflection at both individual and team levels builds our capacity to learn from failures without going into reactivity.

What advice would you give to entrepreneurs entering highly regulated sectors like fintech?

For entrepreneurs venturing into highly regulated sectors such as fintech, the first piece of advice would be to view regulation as a core design constraint—not an afterthought. It also helps to mitigate the risk of undesired consequences months or years later if one grasps the regulatory landscape beforehand. Therefore, embrace compliance in the entire sense, not just as a legal matter but in terms of operationalizing compliance such that it is how your business works daily.

Second, be prepared for uncertainty, as setting up a business is not an easy task. Having a good relationship with advisers and remaining engaged with policymakers will help you react and adapt quickly. Lastly, making sure your technology and processes are flexible enough to adapt to regulatory changes without needing a complete overhaul is crucial.

Finally, maintain focus on user trust, as there is little room for error in regulated industries, and reputation matters. Emphasizing transparency and innovation with responsibility goes a long way toward preserving user trust.