Payments startup Ultracash pilots soundwave verification

Bangalore-based Ultracash has piloted a mobile payment service that allows users to make payments using a unique ultra high-frequency encrypted sound-based technology.

The company has already signed up close to 500 merchants and clocked more than 24,000 transactions in the last two months of pilot run and today has successfully launched it in Bangalore.

The service requires just a bank account and a smartphone. The company says there is no need to preload money or even have Internet access when making a payment. It also doesn’t require NFC chips or hardware.

“Using a unique ultra high frequency encrypted sound-based technology that is patent-pending, You can pay directly from any of your bank accounts or credit/debit cards to the merchant account using your Android phone (iOS coming soon) with just a tap!” the company said.

“The idea behind UltraCash is an aspiration to create a possibility of a near cashless economy. The key feature of Ultracash is that payments can be made without using the Internet through just your phone. You don’t even need to transfer money in multiple digital wallets and manage them separately,” said Vishal Lal, co-founder, Ultracash.

He also went on to argue that the traditional PoS machine is becoming a passive device that is slowly moving towards becoming redundant. Lal backs this up by pointing out that for the 20 million merchants in India and “countless home businesses” there are only one million registered PoS machines.

“That’s the amount of potential available to convert the paper money transactions floating in the system to digital and cashless. The current PoS registration process is cumbersome, clunky and fast losing relevance. The ubiquitous mobile phone is the new PoS,” he added.

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