A marriage made in heaven: how the humble QR code met the small merchant
The QR breakthrough
The technology to liberate small merchants arrived in India around 2015. The unsung hero of this story is surely Masahiro Hara, a Japanese engineer at Denso Wave, who invented the QR code in 1994. Hara was preoccupied with industrial parts tracking, and digital payments were farthest from his mind. Nevertheless, by the early 2010s, Chinese fintech companies such as WeChat Pay and Alipay had transformed QR codes into an ultra-frugal replacement for expensive merchant-side technology. All of a sudden, an inexpensive printed sticker could perform the core function of a costly point-of-sale terminal. Customers could scan QR codes with their phone cameras, enter the exact amount and pay with a gentle tap.
