SMALL OASIS IN A BIG DESERT
A Little World, a Mumbai based company, which has come up with a unique idea, turning a regular mobile phone to play the role of a bank's branch, is a liitle oasis in a big desert, India.
Faced with the challenge of creating affordable solutions to enable penetration of banking in rural areas. ALW as is called in a short name,, came up with this solution. The equipment costs not more than Rs. 30.000, through which a bank's branch becomes functional and offers facilities like depositing / withdrawing money, eloctronic money transfer, crediting of pension money and also having an online passbook.
Other things that make up the branch are a printer-cum fingerprint scanning machine, cash box to store upto Rs. 1 lakh in cash and a high resolution camera. The mobile phone can can store data upto 50.000 customers, including the entire identification profile comprising a picture and 6 fingerprint templates among other details.
Under this, the bank ties with 3rd parties like ALW's clients Zero Mass to conduct business in far-off areas on behalf of the banks.. All the mobile phones have latest security features and are connected to ALW using GPRS technology. The ALW server is in turn connected to to the core banking server of the client bank due to which a a transaction is made possible just like it happens in any conventional way.
ALW has tie-ups with all the major GSM mobile phone operators in the rural areas. It has got tie-ups with 24 banks to operate their banking operations in REMOTEST and UNSERVICED areas across 18 states.
Christened as ' Zero Platform ' for branchless banking based on a mobile, a branch is typically set up in the village grocery store or panchayat office.. Equipments like the printer and cameras are connected to the mobile phone using Bluetooth technology and the entire system has been designed so that it can function even during power cuts, which the villages usually experience.
In a short span of a year, ALW has set up over 2,800 branches across the country and has plans to increase to 5000 branches by year end. The accounts are opened free for a period of 10 years and it currently boasts of over 12 lakh accounts, with 20,000 accounts added everyday. Ifail to understand why others in the same space have not made use of existing technologies which offer great growth opportunities due to low capital expenditure.
The customers are encouraged to use the account for electronic money transfer, insurance premium payments, depositing of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme wages and pension funds in the account.
ALW gets a certain amount as technical fees for rendering its services and also get percentage of commission for each deposit and withdrawal transaction made at the branch. Railway ticket booking has also been started as a pilot project.
HATS OFF TO THE NEW COMPANY AND TECHNOLOGY to meet rural banking needs of the poor.
Faced with the challenge of creating affordable solutions to enable penetration of banking in rural areas. ALW as is called in a short name,, came up with this solution. The equipment costs not more than Rs. 30.000, through which a bank's branch becomes functional and offers facilities like depositing / withdrawing money, eloctronic money transfer, crediting of pension money and also having an online passbook.
Other things that make up the branch are a printer-cum fingerprint scanning machine, cash box to store upto Rs. 1 lakh in cash and a high resolution camera. The mobile phone can can store data upto 50.000 customers, including the entire identification profile comprising a picture and 6 fingerprint templates among other details.
Under this, the bank ties with 3rd parties like ALW's clients Zero Mass to conduct business in far-off areas on behalf of the banks.. All the mobile phones have latest security features and are connected to ALW using GPRS technology. The ALW server is in turn connected to to the core banking server of the client bank due to which a a transaction is made possible just like it happens in any conventional way.
ALW has tie-ups with all the major GSM mobile phone operators in the rural areas. It has got tie-ups with 24 banks to operate their banking operations in REMOTEST and UNSERVICED areas across 18 states.
Christened as ' Zero Platform ' for branchless banking based on a mobile, a branch is typically set up in the village grocery store or panchayat office.. Equipments like the printer and cameras are connected to the mobile phone using Bluetooth technology and the entire system has been designed so that it can function even during power cuts, which the villages usually experience.
In a short span of a year, ALW has set up over 2,800 branches across the country and has plans to increase to 5000 branches by year end. The accounts are opened free for a period of 10 years and it currently boasts of over 12 lakh accounts, with 20,000 accounts added everyday. Ifail to understand why others in the same space have not made use of existing technologies which offer great growth opportunities due to low capital expenditure.
The customers are encouraged to use the account for electronic money transfer, insurance premium payments, depositing of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme wages and pension funds in the account.
ALW gets a certain amount as technical fees for rendering its services and also get percentage of commission for each deposit and withdrawal transaction made at the branch. Railway ticket booking has also been started as a pilot project.
HATS OFF TO THE NEW COMPANY AND TECHNOLOGY to meet rural banking needs of the poor.
posted by vaneet kundra at
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
1 Comments:
yes..hats off to the new company for doing something for the rural.
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