Paymate, a mobile payment platform provider, and IFMR Rural Finance, have announced a tie-up to launch multiple financial inclusion projects through Kshetriya Gramin Financial Services (KGFS).
As a part of this initiative, Paymate has unveiled a mobile phone based person-to-person money transfer initiative in the Delhi to Uttarakhand corridor, and another that enables micro-loan repayments in villages in Ganjam, Orissa.
Commenting on the launch of these initiatives, Ajay Adiseshann, managing director and founder of PayMate, said, “Around 60 per cent of the country’s population does not have access to a bank account or even the necessary documents to help secure basic finance. On the other hand, there has been an exponential growth in mobile penetration with close to 200 million users in rural areas, making it a potent tool to create a financial ecosystem for the under and unbanked masses. The launch of these initiatives is an extension of our belief in the power of mobile telephony to drive financial inclusion.”
Dhanei KGFS offers a suite of financial services to its customers, and loans are a major share of its portfolio. The new initiative is aimed at improving the convenience of repayment.
Using a combination of float model and mobile equipped agents, registered agents of Dhanei KGFS located in remote villages are able to visit the customer to collect payment in cash while using a mobile phone to register the payment against the customer’s unique account ID via SMS.
The solution comes equipped with real time dynamic management information services for Dhanei KGFS to check all the payments and filter them by agent, customer, date and transaction, and even download them for future reference.
Over a year ago, PayMate, along with Tata Indicom and Corporation Bank, launched its person to person money transfer service — Green.
“We at PayMate, firmly believe in the power of the mobile phone as a key instrument in extending financial services to the under and unbanked masses. The earlier Green Money transfer rollout followed by our new initiatives with IFMR further amplifies our commitment to this space,” added Adiseshann.
Commenting on the person-to-person remittance service, Anupama Joshi, chief executive officer, Sahastradhara KGFS, said, “The people living in the hills have been relying on post offices and informal channels for domestic remittance. However, the existing channels are either safe or convenient. The project has addressed the needs of customers to receive money in both, a safe and convenient manner.”
PayMate is a wireless transactions platform provider with a first-of-its-kind mobile payment platform which lets you link your mobile phone to a bank account, credit card or prepaid account – turning your mobile phone into a secure payment tool to be used anytime, anywhere.
PayMate has both hybrid SMS and IVR based transaction platforms along with its BREW and j2ME application suite across all telecom operators.