if you have ever got a toffee or a candy from shopkeeper instead of loose change you should read onalmost everyone has remained oddly satisfied with the arrangement of candies instead of cash but when kumar abhishek was quizzed by a colleague in singapore he realized theres a need for a better payment system in india which was as easy as paying cash while being interoperable while many digital payment services have appeared over the years to remove the hassle of change money they rely heavily on the internet and smartphones causing a big disadvantage to people using feature phones and those with poor data connectivity this is what motivated abhishek to rope in his pal vivek kumar singh to form tonetag in 2013 tonetags inhouse software and devices enable one to pay through sound waves without using internet further its application is not only limited to smartphones but even those using feature phones advt sound to paytonetags technology involves transmitting data encrypted from one device to another using sound waves it doesnt require any particular hardware and can be done through smartphones feature phones pos point of sale devices edc electronic data capture devices and also by tonetags retail pod among others one has to simply program a device with tonetags software and the transactions are completed when the two devices are in close proximity to each otherfor smartphone users they can use tonetags app and simply pay the amount those using feature phones will have to dial an ivr interactive voice response invitation code and the audio signal from the call will initiate the payment operation the customer will then enter the amount and the payment will be received for payments through pos devices the firm gives the merchant a sticker to paste on it which accepts the soundwavebased payments the technology can easily be facilitated with digital wallets and payment apps and works on any operating system android ios windows linux etc the b2b firm provides its api application programming interface to businesses such as banks acquirers issuers technology providers among others since the powerful medium of sound is used to provide contactless payments it is globally the first technology to enable cashless digital payments from cards and wallets from feature phones without internet the payments from tonetag are as easy as making a phone call quipped singh 32 advt singh explained that the tonetag software algorithm encodes data into sound waves which is protected into 3layers of encryption and tokenization customers can authenticate payment only by unlocking their phones further the applications of tonetags technology go beyond general vendor shopping it can be used for persontoperson payments toll plaza payments parking and also to withdraw cash from an atm without using the card all thats needed is tonetags softwaredevelopmentkit to be installed on the devicestonetags tendency of being independent of hardware proves to be beneficial for digital payments in remote areas of the country in remote areas people with feature phones find it difficult to make