{"id":68383,"date":"2026-04-06T15:11:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mint-money.in\/?p=68383"},"modified":"2026-04-09T16:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:26:31","slug":"beyond-payments-the-ai-operating-system-powering-indias-small-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mint-money.in\/index.php\/2026\/04\/06\/beyond-payments-the-ai-operating-system-powering-indias-small-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Payments: The AI Operating System Powering India\u2019s Small Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yadhunandan K R, Co-Founder & COO, Paywize, Karthik Bukkambudhi, Founder & CEO, Paywize, Sridhar Shankar, Co-Founder & CCO, Paywize<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], April 06:<\/strong> Across the world, small businesses are going digital faster than ever. Payments are instant. Lending is app-based. Banking is mobile. Yet behind the sleek interfaces, financial management for most small and medium businesses (SMBs) remains surprisingly manual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In India, the contrast is stark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country is home to nearly 63 million SMBs. Together, they contribute roughly 30% of India\u2019s GDP, account for 45% of manufacturing output, and drive about 40% of exports. But speak to founders and finance heads running businesses with \u20b92\u201310 crore in annual turnover, and the operating reality is far from digital transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They tend to operate multiple bank portals, producing disconnected statements from the bank’s individual portals, and reconciling these reports using Excel spreadsheets. Furthermore, they tend to use WhatsApp for the approval process and do not typically have a single real-time view of cash across their bank accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Missing Operating Layer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Karthik Bukkambudhi and Yadhunandan K R, two entrepreneurs, started to notice the gaps in these processes at the time they were operating their payment infrastructure company – Paywize. They were forced to confront these challenges before they could effectively serve their customers, ultimately leading them to start developing an operating system for SMBs to utilize as a financial operating system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As digital payments adoption surged, fueled by UPI and broader fintech innovation, the rails for moving money improved dramatically. But visibility and control lagged behind. \u201cThe fintech industry has done incredible work on payments and lending,\u201d <\/em>says Karthik Bukkambudhi, Founder and CEO of Paywize<\/strong>. \u201cBut between money coming in and money going out, there\u2019s this entire operating layer: visibility, controls, treasury, governance, that nobody has built for. It\u2019s not a product gap. It\u2019s an operating system gap.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indian SMBs allocate just 3-7% of revenue to digital solutions, and those they adopt are typically standalone tools that don\u2019t integrate with each other : Google Sheets for finance, a basic POS for sales, WhatsApp for approvals. The result is fragmented workflows that leak time, money, and control at every level of the organisation. For businesses operating on tight margins and high transaction volumes, that fragmentation translates into risk: missed optimisation opportunities, delayed decisions, and weak internal controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Complete Finance Solution for SMBs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many small and medium businesses in India, managing finances can feel like juggling multiple balls at once\u2014bank portals, spreadsheets, WhatsApp approvals\u2014all disconnected and time-consuming. That\u2019s exactly the gap Paywize<\/strong> was built to solve. Think of it as the operating system for your business\u2019s money: one platform that gives you visibility, control, and automation, so you can focus on growth instead of manual work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s how it helps businesses run smarter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n