HookoluPay: New Payment Gateway That Plans To Break Language Barrier In India's Northeast

HookoluPay, an international payment gateway service is likely to be launched by May or June this year.

By Anup Sharma

Guwahati: People in India's northeast will soon have a new payment gateway, which will not only break the existing language barrier with the payments gateways and it can also have the option for making offline payment considering the fact that the region still lacks good data connectivity.

HookoluPay, an international payment gateway service is likely to be launched by May or June this year. Developed as part of a startup initiative by Assam-based entrepreneur Aziz Ali, HookoluPay is likely to help users with local dialects available in the region and the developers have also kept the option of offline payment considering the fact that some places of the northeast still lack high-speed data.

"When we talk of digital transformation we must keep in mind that 60 per cent of the people are still not included in the financial services. In many places, particularly in the hilly regions of the northeast people still carry cash for payments. Although there are payment gateways, there is a language barrier like most of the existing payment gateways have services offered either in Hindi or English. HookoluPay will have services in most of the dialects that are available in the region," Ali told ETV Bharat on Wednesday at the Advantage Assam 2.0 summit.

"Our main focus behind developing this new payment gateway is to bring more financial inclusion in the rural areas," said Anand Kannan, cofounder of HookoluPay. While Ali is a native of Jeypore near Naharkatiya in Assam's Dibrugarh district, Kannan hails from Chennai.

HookoluPay is a locally developed Fintech startup based in Assam. HookoluPay has got its license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in November 2024. Kannan said HookoluPay can be used for institutions, for small enterprises, for businesses for governments, for travels and for all other purposes.

"Like any other payment gateway like Gpay or Phonepe or Paytm, it can be used anywhere by anyone. We are going to launch it pan India but our focus area will be Assam and Northeastern states as we are a startup from this region," said Ali.

"At present, we have the options of Hindi, English Assamese, Mizo, and some other languages but more languages are being added so that it becomes user-friendly to the people," said Ali. This will definitely help digital payments in India's northeast, said Ali.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the Advantage Assam 2.0 on February 24 visited the stall put up by Ali and Kannan and encouraged both the entrepreneurs to take the new payment gateway to all the nooks and corner of the country.

"Prime Minister visited our stall on the February 24 evening and asked us to promote the slogan of Viksit Bharat through our new to be launched payment gateway. His words are hugely encouraging for us," said Ali. He said that apart from India, they are also taking this new payment gateway to seven other countries which include Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Bhutan.