Technology in Banking and Finance

When i wrote about the need for banking for a common man in poor Indian villages in February 2009 little did i know that just about the same time elsewhere a start-up was working on this idea. Yesterday this start-up was featured in the Times of India. The company i am talking about is EKO financial services started by Abhishek sinha and Anubhav sinha. This start-up tied up with SBI to offer no frills account to the people representing the bottom of the pyramid. A common man can walk to a store, similar to buying a Sim card on furnishing identity documents can open an account within 10 minutes. And similar to recharging his mobile currency can deposit money into his account by handing over cash to the shop keeper who acts as a customer service point of EKO. Money transfers can be through the phone. I am immensely happy to see this innovation happening at the grass root levels and also very optimistic about the future of this goldmine. All the best to EKO team. The following video shows...

To continue on product innovations, to reach newer segments of the banking market i was thinking about telecom. Why there is such an explosive growth(in terms of reach to common man) in telecom industry versus a hindu rate of growth when it comes to traditional banking. I am not talking about the 20% growth in revenues the banks are making by doling out home loans and credit cards to the consuming public at various interest rates. I am talking about parallel's to pre paid cards, small recharge tickets available at the beedi shops, life time free incoming facilities, bundled products like land line + internet + IPTV, etc that is making telecom companies add 3-4 million subscribers month on month. Is it that the need for a common man to have banking facility is minimal when compared to his need to communicate? I think the answer to this is the way we understand customer segmentation. Unlike the uniformity in need to communicate, the need to have banking services varies widely across ...

I have been thinking quite a bit lately on what innovation could mean to the mass market at the bottom of the pyramid. A lot has been written about the bottom of the pyramid in recent years, that the next level of growth will come from this market. I think this is evident from the emergence of Indian economy. Take for example my self; I come from that strata of society that had seen so much less banking facilities, all by virtue of the economic levels I came from. Today after ten years I am in a good job and now there is a whole set of banks chasing business from me because I have shifted my economic orbit. I think there is a whole generation of Indians today who are very frequently shifting their economic orbits because of the sustainable growth in the economy. And this, is further fueling the growth that has already set in. But, if you think from the bank's perspective, has this change come because of any innovation from bank’s side to reach to those different levels in the socie...