In the previous story, we looked at what happens behind the scenes when you click “checkout” and then click “pay” during an online transaction. The payment may take only a few seconds, but behind that simple action sits a sophisticated infrastructure layer: the payment gateways, technology and systems that move money from the customer to the merchant. AvenuesAI is the smallcap we featured that provides that payment infrastructure.
But there’s also the world of offline payments, in the form of credit and debit cards, which is usually associated with the banks and companies that issue them, like Visa and Mastercard. But the bank doesn’t necessarily make the physical card itself. Behind that physical plastic or metal card is another company — rather, a company that manufactures, personalises, secures, and fulfils payment cards.
Unlike a consumer-facing bank or payment app, its name may not be familiar to the person carrying its product. One of the leading card makers in India is the smallcap Seshaasai Technologies, which makes it an interesting counterpart to AvenuesAI. If AvenuesAI aids in the digital payments process, Seshaasai helps make the physical object that makes digital and POS payments possible.
Seshaasai Technologies: The smallcap behind credit and debit cards
Incorporated in 1993, the company functions across payment cards, communications and fulfilment. Seshaasai works closely with banks on the production, personalisation and delivery of payment cards and related services, including non-card form factors such as wearables, keyfobs, wristbands and stick-ons. In simple terms, they manufacture customer-facing physical products for banks. The company’s client base includes 15 private-sector banks and 10 public-sector banks, while its manufacturing facilities have the capacity to produce 11.4 million payment cards a month. The bank may be the name consumers see on their debit or credit card, but Seshaasai works behind the scenes to craft and deliver the physical payment instruments used in everyday transactions.
How it started: From stationery to technology
Seshaasai got its start in stationery: the company supplied continuous stationery to bank branches, before gradually moving into the production of specialised banking documents. Between 1993 and 2003, the company was focused largely on banking stationery like PIN mailers, corporate and personalised chequebooks, CMS cheques, personalised statements, account opening forms and other secret stationery.
Between 2004 and 2013, Seshaasai began moving beyond traditional banking stationery as digitisation reshaped the BFSI industry. The company invested in secure customer and time-sensitive communications, expanded its physical infrastructure to serve customers across locations, and built out its own services and solutions. The firm also diversified into insurance and took on large-scale government projects, including census and Citizen ID card rollouts.
From 2014 to 2017, Seshaasai focused on solutions to cater to the swift adoption of smartphones, as well as digital payments and data-driven services by investing heavily in physical infrastructure and higher-entry-barrier businesses. The company expanded its locations and hubs, set up greenfield card manufacturing facilities in Mumbai and Bengaluru, and developed welcome kits and other integrated offerings. It also strengthened its existing portfolio, built its eTaTrak tracking platform, and began shifting customer communications from print towards an omni-digital model.
Between 2018 and 2020, Seshaasai recalibrated the business and adapted to a period of disruptive digitisation, paperless banking, GST compliance and the COVID-19 pandemic, which reshaped how businesses operated. The company focused on the growing need for reliable document aggregation, fulfilment and traceability, particularly across BFSI. It developed smart fulfilment solutions, expanded its product portfolio, increased investments in R&D with Seshaasai Labs, and set up dedicated research and IoT facilities.
Evolution and current offerings
Today, Seshaasai operates across four broad areas: payments, communications, fulfilment, and IoT solutions, with technology as the common thread. Its payments business includes the manufacture and personalisation of debit, credit, prepaid and other smart cards, alongside newer payment formats such as metal cards, biometric cards and wearables. The company also provides the infrastructure around those products, including card personalisation, kitting, inventory management, tracking and delivery.
The communications business has evolved from the banking documents and stationery it originally produced into a broader set of physical and digital products and services. These include customer communications, statements, welcome kits, PIN mailers and other personalised documents, with the company combining print, data and digital channels rather than treating them as separate services.
The third piece of the business is fulfilment — the systems and physical infrastructure needed to get these products and communications from the institution to the end customer. Seshaasai has the capabilities to handle inventory, order management, warehousing, tracking and delivery, powered by their in-house platform, IOMS (Inventory Order Management System). This gives banks and other institutions a single system for managing high-volume, time-sensitive fulfilment.
Seshaasai has also built a vertical around IoT solutions, including RFID, and traceability, and has developed products for applications including FASTags, advanced automation hardware, versatile platforms, middleware, and much more. Their RFID solutions can be found across the retail, industrial, automotive, health and pharmaceutical, logistics and renewable energy sectors. In other words, the business has expanded from producing documents for banks to providing a wider set of physical and technology-led infrastructure around financial transactions and digital transformation.
The invisible layer behind the physical payment instruments
Seshaasai isn’t just a card manufacturer, the company is an important link in the essential physical infrastructure that is part of the digital payments ecosystem. A payment card still has to be designed, manufactured, personalised, secured, delivered and replaced, while the world of payments is also expanding into QR codes, wearables, contactless products and other physical form factors.
While firms like AvenuesAI provide the online payment infrastructure that helps consumers move from the checkout page to completing the payment, Seshaasai provides the physical infrastructure behind the payment itself. One company helps move the transaction digitally; the other helps create some of the physical tools through which we make it. Together, the two companies represent different layers of the payments ecosystem: one centred on moving transactions, the other on the physical products and processes that support them.
Sources
Seshaasai Technologies Ltd share price
Technology solutions, products & manufacturing for banks | Seshaasai