Eko India Financial Services limited, India's leading end-to-end Financial Inclusion services provider for unbanked rural markets announced a strategic collaboration with VeriSign, a trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the networked world.
This alliance with VeriSign is a part of Eko’s mission to promote financial inclusion and to provide an easy way to send money home using a simple interface and secure access, ensuring the highest levels of customer care and satisfaction. The alliance would enable the unbanked population of the country do banking transactions securely by using even low-end and low-cost mobile phones.
The service, to start with, would be aimed at low income users. In the later stages it would be extended to medium income households and other segments as well. The widespread use of mobile phones in our country offers a platform for financial transactions that can facilitate financial inclusion of people who would otherwise be outside the purview of the financial system. This service would ensure a secure means of banking for the customers at minimal banking charges as the bank is in the customer’s hands.
Besides this, the same secure mobile platform could be used for a host of transactions like paying the local grocer for household goods, recharging prepaid mobile connection, remitting money to relatives and family instantly.
According to Mr. Abhishek Sinha, CEO, Eko India, “Mobile phones can bring about a paradigm shift in the way that banking transactions happen today. Eko is building a low cost financial services infrastructure to increase the reach of financial institutions to the un-banked and to democratize financial services for the un-banked in urban as well as rural areas. We have tied-up with VeriSign for securing transactions. We generate an ‘Okekey’ which is a new type of authentication designed by us. This Signature Booklet is being used by over 50,000 customers and CSPs enrolled through Eko to authenticate their transactions. Our tie-up with VeriSign helps us provide a secure means of conducting low value banking transactions for customers.”
Mr. Nitin Wali, Lead-Strategic Alliances VeriSign India, said, “VeriSign in India is committed to work closely with the local business community to develop an ecosystem for using the mobile phone as an access mechanism. He further added, “Since all large enterprises and telcos are looking at rural India as a potential market, this relationship with Eko may give VeriSign a first mover advantage in such a market.”
Mobile banking is an area that is rapidly changing the way people conduct financial transactions. According to Gartner estimates, there would be about 730 million mobile users by 2013. Out of these 730 million mobile users a substantial number will be the target market for Eko. This tie-up will help the illiterate population of India, who till date have no access to basic banking facility; engage in secure financial transactions using their mobile phones.