Financial Services Companies Bridging the Last Mile in Financial Inclusion

Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile (JAM trinity) have paved way for great opportunities in the past two years and facilitated the opening of over 300 million bank accounts. However, the lack of Banking infrastructure, bank branches, and ATM restricts access. India being the only large economy with public digital infrastructure in the form of the so-called India Stack, other critical factors driving India’s digital evolution are UPI linked payments, demonetization followed by GST and its shift toward a cashless economy.

Moreover, the cost of data has fallen by 95 percent in the last three years, making it the cheapest globally. Cost reductions have also led to a doubling of smartphone penetration in the last three years, to roughly 300 million users.

In all, India is poised for a Financial services disruption and following are the financial services companies that are truly on a mission to plug the gaps in access to various financial services for the masses across the length and breadth of India:

Spice Money

Spice Money is a tech-enabled hyper-local payments player offering cash-in and cash-out, Spice mini ATM, bill payments, airtime recharge and mPoS services. With a deep presence in ‘Bharat’, Spice Money has nearly 85% of the cumulative 150,000 Customer Service Points (CSPs) in semi-urban and rural India. They have dense footprints in BIMARU region, comprising the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh & Uttar Pradesh; accounting for 65% of India’s population. Spice Money, through its latest technology and wide network of Spicemoney agent, is bridging the gaps in access to various financial services for the masses across the length and breadth of India.

EbixCash

EbixCash is emerging as one of the leading Financial Exchanges in India. With a ‘Phygital’ strategy (physical experience with digital backend) that combines more than 260,000 physical distribution outlets to an Omni-channel online digital platform, EbixCash has established an Enterprise Financial Exchange portfolio that encompasses leadership in digital payments solutions, money transfer services (domestic and international), travel, insurance and corporate and incentive solutions.

BANKIT

The company has played a major role since its inception, for empowerment of the unbanked, under-banked segments in India through offering safe, secure and convenient payments solutions. This in turn has given them the freedom to select an instrument of their choice, be it from a financial, digital or social perspective. BANKIT provides Banking services like Domestic money transfer anytime to any bank in just seconds, even on Sundays and holidays and the transactions are safe, simple and secure.

Oxigen Wallet

Oxigen Wallet is a unit of Oxigen Services India Pvt Ltd. - India's leading payment solutions provider. Since 2004 they have been serving India through business of service aggregation providing instant recharges, bill payment and money transfer through POS machines. With the Oxigen Wallet, they strive to bring the convenience of these services and more to mobile phones and desktop. With over 20 million users and counting a network of 15,000 online and offline merchants, 170+ Banks and 15,000 modern trade partners across the country; they are one of the widely accepted mobile wallet in the country.

(The listicle has not been compiled or written by DataQuest Editors)