>Alaney2k: /* History */names of newspapers, replaced: the ''New York Times'' → ''The New York Times''

2021-06-18T01:16:52Z

History: names of newspapers, replaced: the ''New York Times'' → ''The New York Times''

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{{Infobox company
| name = Eko India Financial Services
| logo = Eko.png
| logo_size = 130px
| caption =
| type =Privately held company
| genre =
| fate =
| predecessor =
| successor =
| foundation = 2007
| founder = Abhishek Sinha, Abhinav Sinha, Manoranjan Kumar, Sanjay Bhargava
| defunct =
| location_city = [[New Delhi]]
| location_country = India
| locations =
| area_served =[[Delhi]], [[Bihar]], [[Jharkhand]], [[Mumbai]], [[Lucknow]]
| key_people = Abhishek Sinha (CEO)<br />Abhinav Sinha (VP–Business Development)
| industry =
| products =
| services = [[financial service]] - [[Mobile banking]] for [[unbanked]] section of the population
| revenue =
| operating_income =
| net_income =
| aum =
| assets =
| equity =
| owner =
| num_employees = 48
| parent =
| divisions =
| subsid =
| homepage = [http://www.eko.co.in/ www.eko.co.in]
| footnotes =
| intl =
}}

'''Eko India Financial Services Pvt. Ltd.''' is an Indian fintech company, service for [[State Bank of India]] (SBI), [[ICICI Bank]] India's two largest banks and [[Yes Bank]], India's youngest private bank, and provides no-frills bank accounts and deposit, withdrawal and remittance services to customers (nearly 80% of whom are migrants or the [[unbanked]] section of the population) through [[mobile banking]].<ref name="mi">{{cite news |url=http://www.livemint.com/2011/01/11210212/Locked-out-of-the-banking-syst.html|title=Locked out of the banking system|date=11 January 2011|work=[[Mint (newspaper)|Mint]]}}</ref><ref name="em"/><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.livemint.com/2010/09/29000356/RBI-permits-corporations-to-wo.html?h=A1|title=RBI permits corporations to work as rural agents of banks|date=29 September 2010|work=[[Mint (newspaper)|Mint]] Wall Street Journal}}</ref> With Bharti [[AXA]] Life Insurance Company, it provides Bharti AXA Life - Bachat Bima, [[micro-insurance]] policies.<ref name="fi"/>

It was established by brothers Abhishek and Abhinav Sinha and two others in 2007. It allows low-wage immigrants workers in the Indian urban areas to remit money to their homes using mobile phones. Today it has 180,000 users doing more than 6,000 [[Transfer payment|money transfer]] transactions a day through a network of 700 "branches" ([[banking agent]]s), in which neighborhood grocery and pharmacy stores serve as "Customer Service Points" (CSP), in [[Delhi NCR]], six districts of [[Bihar]] and one district of [[Jharkhand]] state,<ref name="ny"/><ref name="ic">{{cite web |url=http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Finance/FINC060.htm |title=Eko India's Financial Inclusion Initiative |publisher=IBS Centre for Management Research (ICMR) |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110224012659/http://www.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Finance/FINC060.htm |archivedate=24 February 2011}}</ref><ref name="bw">{{cite web |url=http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=117017537 |title=Software: Company Overview: Eko India Financial Services Private Limited|date=21 January 2011|publisher=[[Bloomberg Businessweek]]}}</ref> processing Rs. 35 million every day, in 2010 more than Rs. 1 billion were processed through its branches.<ref name="em"/>

In 2010, it was chosen amongst the '[[NASSCOM]] EMERGE 50 – The League of Ten for 2010' list by [[NASSCOM]], the Indian chamber of commerce, for "50 Emerging companies which are redefining the benchmark of excellence for the next generation of [[Small and medium enterprises|SME]]s."{{citation needed|date=March 2017}}

==History==

Based on the recommendations of the Khan Commission, the [[Reserve Bank of India]], in its 2005-2006 policy year introduced the concept of 'Business Correspondents' to enhance [[financial inclusion]] in the [[Banking in India|Indian banking sector]], At the time co-founder Abhishek Sinha, a graduate of [[BIT Mesra]], was working with [[Mahindra Satyam]], and was involved in developing a [[mobile commerce]] application for a foreign company. Eventually inspired by a similar program in Brazil,<ref name="ny"/> [[M-Pesa]] model in Kenya where Vodafone-enabled subscribers send cash to other phone users by SMS, [[Globe Telecom]] and [[Smart Communications]], both in Philippines, Abhishek Sinha with brother Abhinav Sinha launched Eko in September 2007 with $0.5 million donated by family and friends as financial service company providing peer-to-peer money transfers, cash deposits and withdrawal, wage and salary payments, micro-insurance, and micro-credit facilities to individuals through small neighbourhood shops, which became their [[banking agent]]s. Eko planned tied up with [[Centurion Bank of Punjab]] in 2008, to open no-frill accounts, fell through after latter merged with HDFC Bank, and the company hit a rough patch.<ref name="em"/><ref name="fi">{{cite news |url=http://www.financialexpress.com/news/at-the-bottom-of-the-pyramid/633021/0|title=At the bottom of the pyramid: Banking on the phone|date=13 June 2010|work=Financial Express}}</ref>

[[Bill Gates]] visited the [[Uttam Nagar]], New Delhi situated mobile banking project of Eko, in November 2008,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.livemint.com/articles/2008/11/05004943/Gates-pays-lowkey-visit-to-te.html|title=Gates pays low-key visit to tech start-up pilot project|date=5 November 2008|work=Mint}}</ref> and an important turning point for the company came in March 2009 when it received a "grant funding" of $1.78 million from CGAP Technology Program which is housed within the [[World Bank]] and co-funded by [[Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation]].<ref name="em">{{cite web |url=http://emerge.nasscom.in/2010/10/made-in-india-featuring-branchless-banking-by-eko/ |title=Made in India: Featuring Branchless Banking by Eko/- |date=12 October 2010 |publisher=NASSCOM, EMERGE |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101231024748/http://emerge.nasscom.in/2010/10/made-in-india-featuring-branchless-banking-by-eko/ |archivedate=31 December 2010}}</ref><ref name="toi">{{cite news|url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/biz/india-business/Ekos-Sound/articleshow/5852015.cms|title=Eko's Sound|date=24 April 2010|work=The Times of India}}</ref>

In February 2009, [[State Bank of India]] (SBI), the largest state-owned banking and financial services company in India, appointed Eko Aspire Foundation as its official business correspondent, which works actively in the field, while its Eko India Financial Services provides technological and non-technological support to the former. Thus around October 2009, with another grant from CGAP Eko started operations<ref name="fi"/> with the launch of 'SBI Mini Savings Bank Account' at [[Uttam Nagar]], [[New Delhi]] on 23 February 2009, this allowed account holders to carry out financial transactions like deposit and withdrawal from their accounts through their mobile phones at various SBI Eko Customer Service Points, like local [[grocery store]]s, stationery stores, petrol pumps, [[Public call office|PCO]]s and pharmaceutical shops in far flung villages of [[Bihar]] and [[Jharkhand]] and Delhi, where the low-wage people rarely have access to a banking system. By November 2010, it had 180,000 users carrying out over 7,000 transactions per day through its 500 "branches" in Delhi and 200 more in Bihar and Jharkhand, the hometowns of many maids and migrants. Eko gets a tiny commission from the bank for each transaction; further on the retailer who operates as Eko's banking agent also gets commission on every account he holds and gets a cut on each transaction, and by August–September 2011, it started turning profit.<ref name="ny"/><ref name="toi"/>

Meanwhile, it also tied up with [[ICICI Bank]], India's second largest bank which started a ''Apna Savings Account'' scheme, and started gathering international business media attention,<ref name="em"/><ref name="bw"/> journalist [[Thomas Friedman]] wrote about it in ''[[The New York Times]]'' (Nov 2010).,<ref name="ny">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/opinion/03friedman.html?_r=3&hp|title=Do Believe the Hype|last=Friedman|first=Thomas|authorlink=Thomas Friedman|date=2 November 2010|work=The New York Times}}</ref> while ''[[Business Week]]'' profiled it (Jan 2011).<ref name="bw"/>

In August 2010, Eko India was chosen amongst the '[[NASSCOM]] EMERGE 50 – The League of Ten for 2010' list by [[NASSCOM]], the Indian chamber of commerce, for "50 Emerging companies which are redefining the benchmark of excellence for the next generation of [[Small and medium enterprises|SME]]s."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://emerge.nasscom.in/2010/08/nasscom-honors-the-emerge-50-the-league-of-ten-at-the-emergeout-conclave-2010/|title=NASSCOM honors the EMERGE 50 – The League of Ten at the EMERGEOUT Conclave 2010|date=25 August 2010|publisher=[[NASSCOM]] website|access-date=22 January 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110211222115/http://emerge.nasscom.in/2010/08/nasscom-honors-the-emerge-50-the-league-of-ten-at-the-emergeout-conclave-2010/|archive-date=11 February 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="re">{{cite web|url=http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/oct/13/slide-show-1-how-he-is-helping-every-rural-indian-get-a-bank-account.htm|title=How he is helping every rural Indian get a bank account|date=13 October 2010|publisher=[[Rediff]], Business}}</ref> In October 2011, Eko was selected as a Tech Awards laureate and won the cash prize for Economic Development. Creation Investments Social Ventures Fund I, a leading private equity impact investment fund, and other co-investors are investors in Eko as they support financial inclusion for the bottom of the economic pyramid.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vccircle.com/500/news/us-based-4b-capital-fund-picks-up-30-in-eko-india-financial-services|title=US-Based 4B Capital Fund Picks Up 30% In Eko India Financial Services|date=14 December 2010|publisher=VCcircle.com}}</ref>

In April 2012, Eko was appointed by Yes Bank as a Business Correspondent to provide domestic money transfer services. The services went live in June 2012.

By January 2016, Eko had grown to manage ₹200 crore (₹20 million, or $30 million) among 1.1 million clients.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.inclusivefinanceindia.org/uploads/publication_link_files/directory-of-the-business-correspondents-in-india.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=12 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160215185204/http://www.inclusivefinanceindia.org/uploads/publication_link_files/directory-of-the-business-correspondents-in-india.pdf |archive-date=15 February 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Financial inclusion#Financial inclusion in India|Financial inclusion in India]]
* [[Branchless banking]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110113071635/http://eko.co.in/index.php Eko India Financial Services, website]
* [http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Leaders-of-Tomorrow-Eko-India-Financial-Services/videoshow/6585609.cms Leaders of Tomorrow: Eko India Financial Services] at ''[[The Economic Times]]''

[[Category:Financial services companies based in Delhi]]
[[Category:Indian companies established in 2007]]
[[Category:State Bank of India]]
[[Category:ICICI Bank]]
[[Category:Financial services companies established in 2007]]
[[Category:2007 establishments in Delhi]]

Eko India Financial Services - Revision history

>Alaney2k: /* History */names of newspapers, replaced: the ''New York Times'' → ''The New York Times''