How the Indian crowdfunding market can benefit from tech, chatbots, payment gateways
Crowdfunding has always been an effective way to raise funds for causes and emergencies since the time immemorial. The fact that people in India earlier used conventional methods of flyers and word of mouth to raise funds for several social causes like cleaning rivers, starting a school for less fortunate kids, etc, speaks for its age old credibility. As the process was a tiresome and tedious one, over the time, it became ambiguous and people had to resort to new methods to raise funds.
The boom in the digital era, technological expansion and the enhanced reachability of internet, crowdfunding has been made easier, effective, affordable and transparent. India being the second largest online market with over 460 million internet users is well acquainted with the concept of crowdfunding and is at the pedestal of being one of the best markets in the growing crowdfunding industry.
Chet Jain, Founder & CEO for Crowdera says, “with digital revolution, internet and smartphones now reaching every imaginable corner of the country, it becomes easier for individuals to access the facility of crowdfunding across the nation. The introduction of UPI and other payment gateways in India, transferring of funds becomes effortless. This has simplified the process of crowdfunding, benefitting both the fundraiser and the donor. Leveraging internet’s reachability, social media has become a hotbed for fundraising agencies and organizations to push multimedia information related to the campaigns to the global audience.”
“The ever evolving technology has efficiently bridged the communication gap between the contributors and fundraisers. New age technologies like AI and Machine Learning can enhance the productivity of any process leading to better customer satisfaction,” he added.
The advent of AI and Machine Learning (ML) plays a massive role in the process of human and machine interaction. The Chatbot industry has seen an explosive growth with larger audience in India adapting to the concept of Chatbots. Chatbots and AI enabled voice systems have made crowdfunding more approachable and personalised. Customers are provided a 24x7 support for all their queries and any other assistance related to their cause. This enables crowdfunding industry to provide a better customer satisfaction and is both cost effective and less time consuming. Chatbots and other AI tools also facilitate the donor to communicate with multiple donors and fundraisers, making their crowdfunding experience more interactive.
Access to payment has become easy with e-wallets and multiple gateway channels available. Moreover global payment gateways give a free hand in channelizing funds from different country. Fundraisers can meet their crowdfunding goals by sourcing funds from a global audience. Payment gateways enabled with AI based tools and other security systems ensure safe and easy transfer of funds and also effectively detect any fraudulent attempts. They ask relevant banking information from the customers and process it to provide a seamless and secured experience to the contributors and sponsors. Crowdfunding becomes a suitable option not only for the fundraisers, but all for the sponsors to channelize their funds effectively.
“Crowdfunding is not just a method to raise funds but has also become an ecosystem in itself. The selfless act of giving is brought closer to individuals with technology backing this generous concept. With almost every industry now thriving on financial technology, crowdfunding market in India is seen to be expanding, transforming the experience of crowdfunding,” concluded Jain.
