Simplifying payments, powering growth: Interview with Kunal Jhunjhunwala, Founder of airpay
By Puja Sharma
Kunal Jhunjhunwala, Founder of airpay, spoke with Puja Sharma of IBS Intelligence about digital transformation in payments, integrating online and offline solutions, and maintaining operational efficiency in India’s low-margin payments environment.
Jhunjhunwala outlined airpay’s mission to deliver a seamless, omnichannel payment experience, catering to both merchants and consumers. The platform integrates diverse payment methods—ranging from UPI and mobile wallets to cash and bank transfers—ensuring accessibility across urban and rural markets.
As traditional companies embrace digital transformation, what strategies can they adopt to streamline payment collections and enhance their distribution channels effectively?
Traditional firms embarking on digitisation must be customer-centric and eliminate or optimise payment collections to better their distribution networks. Most inefficiencies would be erased through the implementation of multi-channel payment gateways, real-time payment reconciliation systems, and automated invoicing solutions. Companies should thus understand consumer payment preferences by leveraging data analytics and proceed to adapt the payment infrastructure of the business. Partnerships with the FinTech providers will help infuse digital payments into the distribution chain, help in expanding market reach, and offer seamless transaction experiences to retailers and distributors alike. Further efficiency in these operations can be added through digital tools such as distributor management software integrating the payments, inventory management, and credit assessments.
With the evolving regulatory landscape in India, how can financial institutions balance compliance requirements with sustaining growth and profitability?
As India’s regulatory landscape evolves, financial institutions must balance compliance and sustaining growth and profitability. The regulatory focus has shifted toward data security, customer protection, and transparency, making compliance a critical, ongoing aspect of business strategy rather than a mere checkbox. Many technology tools allow for proactively identifying risks, helping financial institutions stay ahead of evolving regulations.
In addition to adopting technology solutions, institutions need to engage with legal and regulatory experts to stay updated on the latest regulatory changes. However, compliance must not stifle innovation. By integrating compliance requirements early in product development, financial institutions can avoid delays and additional costs associated with last-minute compliance adjustments. This proactive approach ensures compliance becomes an enabler rather than a hindrance to growth, allowing institutions to develop innovative products while safeguarding profitability and maintaining a strong regulatory standing. In doing so, they can maintain their growth trajectory while navigating the complexities of the regulatory environment effectively.
In the rapidly changing FinTech space, how should businesses prioritise growth and valuation to ensure long-term resilience and profitability?
A: In the fast-paced FinTech sector, businesses often chase aggressive growth targets and high valuations. Sustainability is the key to long-term resilience, though. Companies must focus on building a solid foundation of unit economics—prioritising profitability and reducing cash burn over unsustainable growth. Growth strategies should emphasise customer retention, product innovation, and market expansion into underserved areas rather than purely acquiring users. Valuation expectations of FinTech businesses should also align with realistic projections of revenue and profit to attract long-term investors who value stability and growth more than hype. Governance, transparency, and risk management frameworks should form the bedrock of this approach for sustainable success.
How is airpay integrating online and offline payment solutions to deliver superior consumer and merchant experiences in an increasingly digital economy?
airpay by seamlessly integrating both online and offline payment solutions, delivering a unified, omnichannel experience that caters to the evolving needs of consumers and merchants. In an increasingly digital economy, airpay stands out by creating a smooth and consistent payment experience across multiple platforms, ensuring that businesses can accept payments no matter the channel—whether online, in-store, or through remote transactions.
The strategy central to airpay is the integration of both online and offline payment options.
For online transactions, airpay supports digital payment methods such as UPI (Unified Payments Interface), credit and debit cards, and mobile wallets, offering customers flexibility and convenience in the digital realm. Cash and transfers from banks are offline payments; hence, they are also easily taken. This ensures that businesses can continue to serve a broad spectrum of customers and be especially useful in regions where digital penetration is still developing. Blending all these payment methods ensures that airpay caters to a wider variety of customer preferences, which helps businesses ensure that a single payment channel does not limit them.
For merchants, we offers a range of powerful tools designed to streamline payments. Unified dashboards allow businesses to track and manage payments through both online and offline channels using a single interface, thus reducing the complexity of managing their operations. The dashboards provide real-time tracking and information on every single transaction, therefore equipping the merchants with insights to make relevant business decisions.
This reduces the complexities usually related to managing the separate systems for both online and offline payments and saves time with operational costs that enhance the efficiency of their payment management. Furthermore, airpay’s integration allows for a smooth customer experience. For consumers, the ability to make payments with minimal friction, whether they are shopping online, paying in a store, or making a remote transaction, improves satisfaction and encourages repeat business. The streamlined, intuitive payment flows across all touchpoints not only reduce the likelihood of cart abandonment and transaction errors but also increase consumer trust and loyalty.
The combination of these advanced technologies positions us as a forward-thinking solution that not only meets the needs of modern consumers but also enhances merchant capabilities. By supporting diverse payment methods and providing the tools to manage transactions seamlessly, airpay fosters operational efficiency, drives growth, and enables businesses to tap into previously underserved markets. In doing so, we is playing a critical role in the digital economy, ensuring that both merchants and consumers can thrive in an increasingly connected, cashless world.
With growing competition from NPCI and BillDesk, what innovations are financial institutions implementing to stay ahead in the digital payments landscape?
With increasing competition from players like NPCI and BillDesk, financial institutions are heavily investing in innovation to maintain a competitive edge in the digital payments space. Key areas of focus include frictionless payment processes, simplified user interfaces, and enhanced mobile payment experiences that can boost conversion rates by up to 30%. Such systems are likely to save the financial industry more than $10 billion annually by 2025. Financial institutions are also creating low-cost, high-volume payment solutions tailored for micro and small businesses, helping them participate more actively in the digital economy.
A 2023 survey found that 52% of small businesses are looking for affordable digital payment solutions to scale. Lastly, financial institutions are offering added value services such as lending, loyalty programs, and financial management tools directly integrated into the payment platforms for differentiation. Such an approach allows for the development of customer engagement, as 60% of consumers prefer financial institutions that can offer such integrated services. Such innovations are improving customer experience and securing long-term growth and market leadership in a highly competitive landscape.
How does airpay maintain operational efficiency and profitability in India’s low-margin digital payments environment while ensuring high-quality service?
The firm manages to maintain profitability without sacrificing service quality through a combination of strategic discipline and technological innovation. It aims to scale up its operations by optimising processes, automating workflows, and minimising manual interventions. Investments in AI and data analytics help it to better detect frauds, minimise disputes, and have faster settlement cycles-all of which together reduce operational costs.
airpay also focuses on partnerships and ecosystem collaborations for shared infrastructure and reduced acquisition cost, which helps the company reach more merchants with lower overheads. Simultaneously, the company takes a value-driven approach to offer other services such as lending, loyalty programs, and business tools besides payment solutions to create multiple streams of revenue. With both operational efficiency and diversified offerings, airpay is able to maintain profitability while offering a better, more reliable payment experience for its customers.
IBSi FinTech Journal

- Most trusted FinTech journal since 1991
- Digital monthly issue
- 60+ pages of research, analysis, interviews, opinions, and rankings
- Global coverage
Other Related News
Today
FinTech–focused VC Fund Cedar-IBSi Capital Announces Second Investment In WonderLend Hubs
Read MoreRelated Reports

Sales League Table Report 2024
Know More
Global Digital Banking Vendor & Landscape Report Q4 2024
Know More
NextGen WealthTech: The Trends To Shape The Future Q4 2023
Know More
IBSi Spectrum Report: Supply Chain Finance Platforms Q4 2023
Know More