E-commerce payments and ID platform Nuggets has been selected to join the Access India Programme (AIP) – an initiative providing support to high-potential UK businesses seeking to establish a presence in India. Using blockchain technology, Nuggets enables people to make payments without having to share their personal data. That protects them from fraud, and eliminates the need for a username, password and payment details to be shared.

In partnership with the UK India Business Council, the High Commission of India in London launched the AIP programme in 2017. It identifies high-potential UK SMEs using innovative technologies, and helps them establish themselves within the fast-growing Indian economy. Selected companies receive a range of services, from mentorship to networking and market-entry support.

India has only recently moved away from making 80% of payments in cash, with 60% of the population unbanked. Even so, India’s GDP is forecast to grow by 7.4% in 2018, and the economy is set to overtake both the UK and France in size over the next few years. A consumer product like Nuggets, which enables simple, secure e-commerce payments, has value in accelerating India’s move towards a cashless society.

IndiaStack, a program aiming to combine APIs and software on a single platform to bootstrap a new cashless infrastructure, already has protocols such as eKYC and UPI, and could soon add Nuggets to its platform.

Seema Khinda Johnson, COO and co-founder of Nuggets, said: “Nuggets is a global payments and identity platform. Having support like this from the Indian High Commission will help our expansion efforts immeasurably. We’re proud to have been selected for this programme. We’ve always believed in the power of our technology to empower consumers and boost economies. That’s especially true in such a vibrant, tech-focused environment as contemporary India.”

Economic Minister with the High Commision of India in London, Manish Singh stated: “We are delighted to welcome Nuggets to our flagship AIP programme. Nuggets is exactly the sort of product we look for: exceptionally innovative, delivered in a way that can empower an entire population.”

This latest development for Nuggets comes after similar success in China. On the 13th of April 2018, the UK Government and the Mayor of London announced Nuggets would lead the UK Tech Mission in China. The company also took part in the recent launch of ‘Regulatory Sandbox for FinTech: UK-China Collaboration to Promote Financial Innovation’.

Government support has played a critical role in Nuggets’ development. In its early days, the start-up was selected by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for its Project Innovate, enabling Nuggets to test its product with consumers in the regulatory sandbox.