My name is Sudhanshu and I'm the Co-founder/CEO of Cheq UPI (https://www.chequpi.com). We are the first UPI wallet for foreigners and non-resident Indians travelling to India. Using Cheq, you can purchase almost any goods/services across India .
Just scan the merchant QR code / choose the pay by UPI id option to make the purchase. You don’t need an Indian bank account to operate Cheq UPI. Our prepaid wallet can be topped up with any international debit/credit card.
10mn+ foreigners visiting India each year, invariably face one of the below problems
1) Indian merchant not accepting international credit/debit cards
2) Unavailability of ATMs/money changers at remote locations
3) Indian merchants not tendering exact loose change
The Cheq UPI app was launched to help all these individuals travel cashfree across the country.
If know someone planning to visit India this year, please ask them to try us out!
A lot of time, hard work and luck has gone into building Cheq and we hope it’ll make travelling to India more convenient for citizens across the globe.
Some quick pointers to know about the Cheq UPI app:
- The Cheq UPI app works ONLY in India and we must verify your passport in-person before activating the UPI wallet.
- Once activated, you’ll be able to scan & pay with UPI anywhere across India.
- Funds can be added to the Cheq wallet using any international debit/credit card, you don’t need an Indian bank account / aadhaar card.
- Apart from the 10$ account opening fees, there are no other costs for using the product. Funds added can be spent anywhere across India.
I’ll be available to answer any questions you may have throughout the day about Cheq, UPI or Indian fintech in general.
Look forward to seeing you all try Cheq UPI
PS: We're continuously improving our services, so critical and constructive feedback is most welcome.
However, in-person-branch-verification is a big non-starter for me. It needs to be more convenient than visiting a branch. If I have to visit a branch, I might as well open an NRE account; there's an ICICI on every street. I checked your list and I don't see any Tier 2 cities. There's nothing all over Tamil Nadu and Kerala except Chennai.
So, in the absence of a 24/7 kiosk or manned counter in every major international airport (3-4 in each state), you need to have an option for pre-verification online/FaceTime/webcam or via document upload. Otherwise, the inconvenience of a branch visit negates any usefulness.
Also, why restrict the app to work only in India? I should be able to load money and withdraw money wherever. Just disable the payment part.
Unfortunately, existing regulations in India mandate a one-time physical verification before we can unlock you for a full-fledged prepaid account without applying artificial limits.
Our team is definitely looking into way to make this entire process online and as hassle-free as possible. And we're looking for ways to unblock activation directly at airports.
Will keep you posted as things develop.
> Also, why restrict the app to work only in India?
I am unsure but somewhere in the RBI regulations it says prepaid wallets are only supposed to work while customers are in India. At least that's what we've been informed by the lawyers. Hence transactions are currently disallowed from outside.
But if enough folks adopt Cheq, I am confident we can ask the government for relaxations. Technically, its super easy for us.
To get anywhere and do anything required increasingly elaborate setups and even personal password sharing between myself and new inlaws that hardly knew me.
A lot of time and money was wasted and somehow in the process I was banned from Uber for several months.
I have the same advice for you I would give to basically every other business that caters to tourists in India: charge a lot more and make it a lot more convenient. If you need in-person verification and can't get an airport kiosk, give me an option to pay $50 and have someone come to my hotel or have someone pick me up and bring me to Cheq. It's so difficult to get around before you get some kind of digital payment setup.
This is an issue with using AliPay and WeChat Pay in China as well. If you want to access the full spectrum of services including reserving train tickets, flights, and hotels with online payments, you need to get a local SIM card and mobile phone number, and then with that plugged in and working, visit a bank branch and set up a bank account in-person. In theory you can do both of these things in the span of an hour if you go first thing in the morning, but not every bank employee knows how to open an account with a passport and sometimes you'll have to visit 2 or 3 branches until you encounter someone know knows how to do it in their system.
Mobile payments are convenient once set up but they have made the world more fragmented with every superpower country implementing its own system.
We plan to scale with doorstep verification services in the meantime.
Edit: to be more helpful, a system like this would be more exciting for me - Upload the passport in app, the passport is verified only by a salaried and background-checked (you know, like a police clearance certificate) staff that is a employee of your company (not a third party or contractor). Have a clearly written policy about record keeping, security of the storage, pursue legal charges against employees who don't adhere to privacy policy. Etc.
Companies like Wise power Remittances i.e. you can send money to a person in India from USA using their facilities.
However, this cannot be used to make purchases from merchants. Nor are you guaranteed your money will be delivered within 2 minutes in case of cross-border remittance.
Because Cheq actually opens a new Indian wallet, we must do the passport verification. Regulations are pretty specific in this regard currently.
Rest assured though, when you try to open your Cheq wallet today, your details will only ever be seen by White collared staff on direct Payroll of Transcorp. The agent only takes a photo of your passport for our records (no paper copies of your details are stored).
We'll keep trying to improve the onboarding experience in the coming years for sure.
> Verify yourself at any one of our partner branches across India
How do I find out if there's a branch nearby without downloading your app and committing to an unknown amount of effort? I couldn't find a list of your branches anywhere, but it looks like it would be a showstopper if there isn't one available. It's as if you're being evasive about how widespread your coverage is. Why should I invest my time if it seems likely that you won't have a branch where I need it, and therefore I won't be able to use your services at all?
For example: do you have a presence in the arrivals areas at major airports? If so, which ones?
In fact, it seems that your call to action is to download your app. But why would I bother to do that if I know I won't get anywhere without visiting a branch to get approval first? Assuming you have no choice about in-person documentation checks, it would make more sense for you to send prospective customers to their nearest branch, have their documents checked and approved there, and to provide wifi at every branch so that they can get the app up and running quickly - for example with a QR code or something generated by your staff when documentation is approved and an account created. Being asked to set up the app first, when we know we will be blocked on a visit to a branch, seems backwards.
Your FAQ says:
> Your passport and Indian VISA are required to open a tourist wallet
What about OCI holders? Are your branch staff going to be familiar with this case, or will it be a waste of time to show up with one?
> You can add funds to your tourist wallet via an instant payment gateway.
This is a non-answer. Is this through the app? Through the website? Through something else not specified? Are there any criteria that must be met? Or do you support adding funds immediately via credit card without any further review steps apart from the usual payment flow expected when buying anything else online? Because that's what I'd like, and this answer makes me doubt that this is what you mean.
1) https://transcorpint.com/find-us => You can verify yourself at any of these centers across India.
We'll improve the site to directly point customers to appropriate verification centers (thanks for pointing this out)
2) OCI holders are accepted as well. Only your passport and OCI card are required
3) Add funds facility is instantenous. And is available in the app once you've finished the verification. You'll be able to add funds via any card, and instantly receive funds in your Cheq wallet for spending.
Just looking at the locations, it's a 2-3hr cab ride in Mumbai/Kolkata between the airports and the transcorp centers during rush hours, and 1-2hr trip in Delhi. Also credit cards are widely accepted at most places except roadside stalls, etc.
This service would be beneficial to visitors and NRIs (like me) if cross-sold with SIM cards or in currency exchanges at airports, otherwise I fail to see a valid use case due to the sheer inconvenience of having to take such a long cab ride in traffic. Also a lot of international flights land at night so visitors would have to dedicate at least half of next day to go verify their identity.
You probably would want to co-operate with the SIM vendor offices at airports, they already do same checks if you want mobile data in India so might as well do it for UPI.
The target persona who would use this is probably in the Indo-American diaspora, which skews Telugu, Malayali, Kannada, and Tamil - and that too a mix of larger cities and smaller towns (the South Indian versions of Moga and Ludhiana such as Coimbatore, Thrissur, Warangal).
In my experience, Punjabi NRIs are tech averse and tend to head directly to the pind where you can still use cash, or stick with Chandigarh/Delhi, where credit card support is mainstream.
Re-pivot to target the more tech aware Indian diaspora in the US - they would be more open to adopting a "random" app (not to dunk on you guys - getting into YC is amazing, but it doesn't have street credit outside the Bay Area).
It's a connundrum whether these centers are more useful at/near airports or city centers. I would think airports, and therefore someone travelling to Mysore wouldn't need to go to your Bangalore center, but I may be wrong.
If you don't mind sharing, what's the thought that went into these locations?
Handing over my passport doesn’t bother me as most hotels ask for it and take a copy at check in.
However I am in Leh.
And your link above doesn’t seem to open on my phone here (Airtel SIM).
I hope you manage to make it easier to apply - sounds like a great idea.
Seems like you’re the one not in the know. The OCI is merely a visa.
But this is amazing. Do you have a subscription service or do you charge a markup on forex deposits ?
Also how did you build a legal structure to allow this ?
Congrats on the launch. Wish you success :)
10$ joining fees and a 3.5% markup on adding funds is the current business plan.
We'll observe customer usage over the next 3-6 months and figure out if fixed fee subscriptions can be cheaper.
> Also how did you build a legal structure to allow this ?
We've partnered with Transcorp International Limited to operate the Cheq app in India. They are an RBI approved AD2 and PPI license holder. Customer funds are parked in an escrow account with them until utilized via the UPI network.
This is also why Cheq physical verification can happen only at Transcorp branches currently.
You can think of Cheq as a technology platform using Transcorp as our banking partner.
Or Transcorp, as a financial services firm, using Cheq as its technology partner.
> Apart from the 10$ account opening fees, there are no other costs for using the product. Funds added can be spent anywhere across India.
As mentioned above, there is a 3.5% fee for adding funds.
I looked into Cheq before my recent trip to India. After doing the math I realised it was cheaper to take out some cash at the airport for smaller transactions and tips. I had no issue using my credit card at larger stores.
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I have given this feedback earlier, too, but the copy sounds Ind-lish at most places. Your customers are going to be primarily non-Indian. It would be best to have a native speaker, such as an American, to review and re-write. I’m an Indian and have worked primarily with overseas clients since the early 00s. I have learned a lot about what we speak/write sounds normal, but they sound either funny at best or rude at worst.
Not in a derogatory way, and I’m guilty of being one myself, too. However, this is what I equate to, “Quite a tad of our Indian English is like driving a car with the handbrake half-engaged or sawing a hardwood with an unsharpened tool.”
Best of luck. This tool needs to exit.
I’d perhaps be happy to see translation options as Indian English, American, UK etc on a modern humorous tone :-)
Please go through the WebArchive of any successful Indian Startups (even the ones focused on Indians); they all eventually moved to a more Internationally better sounding English. We Indians can understand them and are not culturally nostalgic or patriotic about “Indian English.”
While we are at it, I guarantee that once they succeed, if not the founder of Cheq, the investors and/or external forces will force them to buy `Cheq.com.` I will be surprised if they are not thinking of getting that domain already.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad
Thank you very much for the suggestion!
> It would be best to have a native speaker, such as an American, to review and re-write.
Great idea.
We'll definitely try to work with someone in this capacity.
We're already incorporating multiple language support and language translations.
Some feedback:
Bad typo on homepage (should be sponsor not sponser - also why is this so prominent on your landing page, seems weird).
Who is transcorp and how are you related to them? Western people are very unlikely to have heard of them (I had to Google), and are you part of them, powered by them, etc? It's confusing having two brands like that at the top of your page.
The two "British" video testimonials don't have British accents. Are you sure they are actually British?
Finally in terms of practical steps I think not having branches at airports to do the KYC checks is a major issue.
Btw, I think partnerships would be a good way to market yourself. There are a lot of prepaid travel cards in the west and I can imagine they'd be happy to look at promoting you.
Will get this fixed. Also improve the positioning of it.
The idea behind getting sponsors was to keep the customer charges as low as possible.
We're attracing a very premium customer base and I am confident merchants would like to place themselves before our audience.
> Who is transcorp and how are you related to them? Western people are very unlikely to have heard of them (I had to Google), and are you part of them, powered by them, etc? It's confusing having two brands like that at the top of your page.
Transcorp is our banking/licensing partner. We're currently using their services in India to manage customer funds and power our UPI connection.
I understand your feedback though. We'll work on presenting this better.
> The two "British" video testimonials don't have British accents. Are you sure they are actually British?
Hahah, Nice catch. I just rechecked. Andrew is British. Olivia is American. Leo is Russian. We'll update this.
> Btw, I think partnerships would be a good way to market yourself. There are a lot of prepaid travel cards in the west and I can imagine they'd be happy to look at promoting you.
That's a great idea. We'll definitely explore this route for growth.
[1] https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/hassle-fr...
Behind the scenes story below :
Until last year, there was no way for Indian fintechs to provide UPI services to international citizens.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided in January 2023 to issue UPI enabled wallets to international citizens visiting India during G20.
We got a call late at night asking if our team can quickly deliver this solution.
Our team stepped up and the first version was delivered within 30 days.
This app was used to showcase UPI to various the G20 delegates who visited Bangalore in February.
We've spent another 5 months tweaking things and finally, we feel ready to launch the app in front of you :)