India’s Razorpay launches faster checkout feature, tops $60 billion TPV

Razorpay is making it more convenient for users to pay businesses with a faster checkout option as the leading Indian payments infrastructure giant pushes to win a bigger slice of the world’s second largest internet market.

The new feature, called Magic Checkout, saves shopper’s information — password, card details, addresses — during their first purchase and prefills those when they transact with the same business or any other that also uses Razorpay to process its payments, the startup said.

Magic Checkout — which is similar to offerings provided by Bolt and Fast in the U.S. — is Razorpay’s attempt to help merchants ward off the 70% drop off they typically see during the last step of the transaction process, the startup said.

The feature supports all payment methods including cash on delivery and requires minimal integration on the business’s end, the startup said. “With this unique checkout experience, shoppers can now checkout 50% faster while retailers can expect a 20% increase in conversions which means 20% more revenue for a business,” it said.

Magic Checkout is one of a series of announcements Razorpay, which counts Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Y Combinator and Salesforce among its backers, made at its annual event called FTX on Thursday. The startup, founded nearly seven years ago by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, said it has registered over 300% growth for the second consecutive year.

As of early December, the startup had processed over $60 billion in transactions for its customers, up from the $50 billion goal it had set out for itself last December, it said. The startup, which has amassed over 8 million clients, said it is now aiming to process $90 billion in transactions by the end of next year.

Razorpay has established itself as the dominant payments infrastructure firm in India, where it competes with PayU and Cashfree. Stripe, the global payments giant, has also been operational in India for several years, though it has yet to make inroads in the country. Two of its key executives, including the head of Stripe in India, left earlier this year to start their own cross-border payments startup.

“Of the 42 Indian startups that have become unicorns this year, 33 of them use Razorpay,” said Mathur in an interview with TechCrunch. “We keep saying, our growth happens with the growth of the ecosystem.”

Razorpay additionally introduced a new feature called RazorpayX Tax Payment Suite for its neobanking customers today that will serve as a single portal for tax disbursements. The feature allows businesses to import all their filings from other sources to help them save time. “Tax and Compliance are two of the most feared words for any business in India,” said Kumar.

“It is a one-stop platform for all tax payments needs of small businesses, be it TDS, GST, TCS or Advance Tax. Further, the RazorpayX dashboard provides businesses a single, transparent view of all disbursals for seamless collaboration between finance teams, external accountants, and business owners,” he said.

And last, Razorpay said it is also giving back to the community. It’s launched RIZE, a launchpad for the first-time entrepreneurs to help them with scores of crucial early-stage startup problems such as incorporating the firm and filing the first payroll, and guidance on securing loan and equity investments, Kumar said.

Razorpay is not taking any equity or charging any fee for the incubation program, which is attempting to create a community to help early-stage founders connect and engage with late-stage founders and other mentors.

For Rize, the startup said it has partnered with over 50 product companies including AWS, Freshworks, WeWork, Zoho, Shiprocket, WebEngage and others to create the comprehensive toolkit, along with benefits worth $500,000 on Razorpay and its partner products at no charge.

“India is not like the U.S. You don’t get funding based on an idea. For funding, you need traction and that part is complicated. So we want to help startups solve that,” said Mathur.