Paper voucher giant Sodexo has partnered with financial technology startup Zeta for enabling strong technology platform.
This partnership will assist Sodexo to leverage the regulatory hurdle directed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) pertaining to phasing out of paper vouchers and also expand the list of offerings beyond meal vouchers to the corporate clients by the end of this year, reported The Economic Times.
“The aim is to provide the meal voucher benefits of Sodexo and merge it with the other benefits of Zeta such as Leave Travel Allowance (LTA), medical benefits, meal and fuel,” said Stephane Michelin, chief executive officer, Sodexo Benefits and Rewards Services India.
“This will bring together the strong technology solution of Zeta with the market know-how and reach of Sodexo,” he added.
Sodexo meal vouchers and cards are used by 11,000 corporate entities in India and accepted at around 30,000 merchant outlets and is used by around 30 lakh consumers.
The company operates in 80 countries across the globe and has the highest portion of the market share in the Indian meal voucher space.
“Through this partnership they would be able to use technology to provide the entire gamut of services to their clients who had been long demanding more benefit solutions for their employees,” he said.
“In the paper format, it was impossible to provide all services to our clients such as LTA, medical benefits or fuel benefits, but through plastic cards and a smartphone application, they can be provided very easily,” Michelin explained.
In sync with the RBI’s mandate to phase out paper vouchers, Sodexo is in the process of digitising the acceptance infrastructure at the 1500 locations in India where it is used.
“We have introduced digital acceptance infrastructure at 700 locations, and we will finish the rest 800 within the next six weeks,” he said.
“We are bringing in both QR code-based acceptance as well as point of sales terminals for card swipe,” he added.
“In partnership with Sodexo, we can reach a larger number of clients and customers, faster and help them benefit from the savings and simplicity our technology can offer,” said Bhavin Turakhia, co-founder of Zeta.
The company, through this partnership, is looking forward to achieving a growth of 30 to 40 per cent in the number of consumers with the help of payment solution over the next year.
As of now the tie-up is applicable in India and depending on the success of the partnership, Sodexo will plan to take the solution globally.
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