FINO To Exploit Mobile Market For Rural Banking

Mobile banking is the hottest area of development in the banking sector and is expected to replace the credit/ debit card system in the future. Financial Information Network and Operations (FINO) has launched FINO-MITRA, a comprehensive package of mobile-enabled banking solutions. MITRA enables enrollment as well banking transactions through the use of mobile technology, thus, increasing scalability at reduced costs.

Manish Khera, CEO, FINO, said, “MITRA will ensure that FINO is able to reach out to a large segment of the eight million rural subscribers of mobile phones, who are deprived of basic banking facilities. Currently, mobile enrollment is being done for NREGS where data is made available with pre-populated fields.”

The mobile subscriber rate in India has been increasing rapidly and stood at 362 million as of January ‘09. FINO MITRA serves as an alternate method of catering to the unbanked population of the country by helping them avail basic banking facilities. MITRA works as both an enrollment and transaction device used by FINO agents. This product enables the end user to use their mobile phones for banking transactions, as an e-wallet and for other mobile commerce transactions as well. The wide network of FINO enables the customer to access the services in a seamless manner even if he moves to different parts of the city or country.