Mobile Banking for Financial Inclusion

We are doing a pilot on Branchless Banking using Mobile Phones and Agent Model. We see that the need for domestic remittance will drive the adoption of service. Eko believes that it can facilitate this through a bank-led model as a “Mobile Virtual Banking Operator” and offer many more services to the customers based on aggregation.

As our model is a bank-led model, we first give a bank account to the customer. Eko in partnership with Centurion Bank of Punjab, now HDFC Bank, has launched “Abhilasha” - No Frills Savings Accounts in Uttam Nagar, New Delhi. This is a pilot project under Reserve Bank of India’s Business Correspondent circular. This pilot project started on 25th of February 2008 and we have close to 2000 customers right now.

CGAP, a World Bank body has mentioned about our techniques in their latest Focus Note (http://www.cgap.org/p/site/c/template.rc/1.9.4400?page=print). We have simplified the process of opening of a bank account to as simple as getting a prepaid mobile connection and looking to ensure greater outreach of financial services. We wish to extend this low-cost infrastructure to financial institutions across India on a progressive basis.

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Science & Technology

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