ekgaon chooses mobile platform to empower villagers
http://informationweek.in/Mobile/10-04-06/ekgaon_chooses_mobile_platform_to_empower_villagers.aspx
When 60 percent of the Indian population has no access to financial services (or no bank account), that presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is to provide financial services to almost 600 million people, at the lowest possible cost. Delhi-based ekgaon technologies has achieved this feat using technology.
The company won the Dell Small Business Excellence Award 2009, the Stockholm GKP Challenge Award 2007, and the Nasscom Social Innovation Honours 2010 for its accomplishments. Its co-founder and CEO, Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya explained how they did it.
“People living in the rural areas are not just consumers—they are also producers,” says Aditya. “Since they are at the bottom of the pyramid, they have genuine service requirements and this has a lot of market potential.”
Ekgaon’s mission
Ekgaon (one village), an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and management services company, has a mission to use ICT to empower lives in rural areas. It opted for financial services first, but also plans to offer other information-related services.
Founded in 2002 by two entrepreneurs, ekgaon partners with microfinance institutions, NGOs, NBFCs (non-banking financial companies), banks and insurers. The company works closely with self-help groups. For instance, in Rajasthan, it partners with an organization called Pedo, which in turn works with the Bank of Baroda for microfinance services. The company has a total of 50,000 customers in India.
Why mobile?
Ekgaon chose the mobile platform and open source solutions for its microfinance projects running in Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. Its application interfaces are offered in most Indian languages. “We chose the mobile platform because of its low cost and the value associated with voice services. Also, due to its usability, and its technical support for maintenance in rural areas,” says Aditya.
Using ekgaon’s solution, banks and financial institutions can connect to their customers in rural areas using a front-end technology solution (on the phone) called One Mobile. This is wirelessly linked to the One MIS application on the server, which handles portfolio management and microfinance transactions.
How the solution works
Typically, an NGO field officer goes to the rural area to help the villagers with microcredit and savings transactions. The transaction is done through a software on their phones (One Mobile).
Once the transaction is complete the information is stored on the mobile as an encrypted SMS and this is transmitted in encrypted form across the mobile network to the servers. It is decrypted on the servers in real time and stored as information. This happens in a span of 2 to 3 seconds. The officer then issues a receipt to the client using a portable thermal printer.
A finance organization known as the ‘federation’ does the settlement with all the accounts there. Then a settlement is done with the bank (for instance the Bank of Baroda, for loans). Bank managers access the information on the server to analyze their portfolios.
Road ahead
While ekgaon takes the plunge into rural empowerment with financial services in two states, it intends to scale up to other states in India, soon. It also intends to offer information-based services such as weather forecasting through SMS.
“Besides financial services we are also working in agriculture and citizen services (e-governance). For citizen services, we created an application on the mobile that allows NGO volunteers to monitor implementation of social welfare programs like NREG (National Rural Employment Guarantee) pay pensions. This can also be used to monitor how provisions are being distributed to people through a chain of ration shops,” informs Aditya.