ToneTag: Enabling transactions through soundwave technology

Vivek Kumar

By harnessing the power of sound through soundwave technology, ToneTag uses contactless payments to create unique and powerful experiences between people and their devices. The soundwave technology in both these offerings has a strong channel off communication which helps them to be interoperable, secure and frictionless, says Vivek Kumar, COO, Co-founder, ToneTag in conversation with Anupama Mehra of Elets News Network (ENN).

Vivek Kumar

1. How technology is helping your company to enhance customer’s real-time experience?

At ToneTag, our offerings are driven by soundwave technology. Soundwave technology, as the name suggests, primarily relies on sound to carry out transactions. In this manner, the digital payments mode takes away the dependence on additional infrastructural factors such as specific smartphone hardware, software or an internet connection.

As most mobile phones in the country, along with POS, EDC and other machines are equipped with the ability to produce and receive sonic waves, soundwave technology effectively makes use of this feature to create an instant, cost-effective process with real-time acknowledgment of transactions at the point of sale. Once transmitted from the vendor’s payment device to the customer’s phone via a unique sound wave, the secured and encrypted data is converted into analogous signals, which then further respond to validate and fulfill the transaction process.

We make use of soundwave technology in several ways to enhance various everyday experiences for customers. These includes:

  • Smart dine-in solutions – Provides customers with a personalised dining experience where they can choose, order and pay from their phone at an instant. Voice assisted order and payments enhance QSR and canteen experiences. Both these offerings eliminate the need for waiting in queues to make a purchase.
  • Secure proximity payments with data-over-sound technology – Introducing a smarter alternative to split bills, cash on delivery and interoperable P2P payments between any ToneTag enabled devices. Users do not require a data connection or additional hardware/software, as the whole process is enabled by the transmission of soundwaves and is carried out completely offline.
  • Card-less ATM Solution– A highly secure process of transaction that doesn’t require access to card or banking details of customers. Customers can simply use their banking applications to withdraw cash.
  • Cashless parking solutions – Convenient and secure single-touch authentication for customers which reduces cash-handling cost and time.
  • In-store concierge solution – Provides a personalised shopping assistance experience to customers in the offline retail space by enabling instant bi-directional communication and helps in broadcasting personalised promotional content

2. How blockchain technology is helping in ensuring security in payment space in India?

Blockchain is currently considered amongst the most secure ways to store information. Through the use of distributed ledgers, it creates a public record of each transaction made through the system, comparing and linking every new addition to the previous ones. In this way, it is able to ensure complete transparency and security, where information cannot be tampered with or altered without the knowledge of all the stakeholders involved. This is because, through time stamps and past linkages, the original information is always retrievable. Given the sensitivity of information related to people’s finances and monetary transactions, blockchain makes for a robust tool to enhance and ensure the security of historical information.

By combining blockchain with soundwave technology, ToneTag enables contactless payments that are traceable, transparent, and secure. With this, all parties involved in the transaction are protected by the blockchain since it maintains a public record of every transaction that has ever taken place in the system. Additionally, any previous transaction can be verified on the blockchain.

3. What services/ solutions you are providing to the companies in India and globally?

By harnessing the power of sound through soundwave technology, ToneTag uses contactless payments to create unique and powerful experiences between people and their devices.

The soundwave technology in both these offerings has a strong channel off communication which helps them to be interoperable, secure and frictionless. This is regardless of the type of device hardware or application (feature phones or smartphones, POS terminals, EDC machines, etc.), and works even without a data connection – as long as it can produce and receive sound. Additionally, it works seamlessly with e-wallets and other digital payment platforms. ToneTag is a pioneer in this domain and has played a key role in using soundwave-based payments and experiences to transform India’s payments and retail space simultaneously.

4. What new innovations are you planning for the company in the near future?

We are working towards digitising offline commerce with personalised customer engagement solutions in offline retail.

5. Who all are your major competitors?

Being a software element, ToneTag does not compete with device-specific payment instruments, banking apps or even mobile wallets. In fact, through our offerings, we are actually facilitating payments via such platforms and helping them deliver an enhanced user experience.

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