There is huge potential for cash card market

You were recently awarded for the Most Innovative Prepaid Program by

PayBefore for the ItzCash Octroi Automation Project? What was the project all

about?



ItzCash recently introduced a prepaid cash card for Octroi Automation in Mumbai.
We introduced an RFID contact-less card and carried out the complete end-to-end

automation of the octroi collection process. In the first phase we tied up with

the MCGM and focused on automating the octroi levied on the trucks, carrying

building and construction material, that were entering Mumbai. With the help of

the ItzCash Octroi card, the truck drivers today just have to go and hand the

octroi officer the prepaid octroi card which is then passed over a contact-less

terminal generating a receipt that is handed back to them. The time of operation

was reduced from 30-40 minutes to less than a minute. In addition, a certain

level of transparency was created as the MCGM made the octroi card mandatory.

What other projects are you rolling out for MCGM?



We are also working with the MCGM to automate payments for property tax,

water bills, and other utility bills. In addition, we are planning to roll out a

similar mobile SMS service. This will deliver services regarding death or birth

certificates to citizens.

Most of the large IT companies in the e-governance space work within certain

states to roll out multiple services.We have partnered with them to offer

ItzCash cards to the customers, so that they can bundle their services with our

large franchisee network and over 5,000 services. Our plan is to help these

companies create end-to-end payment automation and a real-time information

system which serves as an efficient data mining tool.

What is the scope of the prepaid cash card market?



At present our focus verticals are government, travel and utility. Another

upcoming segment is the entertainment sector, especially the transactions for

DTH services through the Internet, mobile (SMS) and IVRS mediums. As we move

forward, there will be a huge scope for cash card transactions in the music,

gaming and mobile downloads market as it will prove to be the most

cost-effective medium because of low-value transactions.

Today, ItzCash processes about $529 bn worth of cash-less transactions. In

India, about 97% of transactions are still made through cash. So the prepaid

cash card market definitely has a huge growth potential.

Priya Kekre



priyak@cybermedia.co.in