To enable payments and small finance banks with technology and innovations
Mahindra Comviva, provider of mobility and financial solutions, has announced that its mobile financial product, mobiquity, is ready to enable payments bank and small finance bank licensees to launch their financial services in India.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has ushered India into the next generation of banking with payments bank licenses being awarded to 11 non-banking entities. The new licensees include established mobile operators, technology firms and financial service companies. Payments banks are expected to drive an increasing convergence between technology and financial services by facilitating seamless electronic payments in the future.
Banking on its global expertise of enabling mobile financial services for over 65 banks and mobile operators in over 45 countries, mobiquity will now help the new licensees in rapidly establishing a highly scalable and flexible distribution network and partner ecosystem. It will also provide a comprehensive technological support system to deliver a host of consumer-centric, mobile financial services, ranging from remittance and payments to savings and insurance, catering to diverse consumer segments in the Indian market.
The new licensees will additionally be able to use mobility to overcome infrastructure and adoption challenges faced by conventional banks ensuring financial inclusion. Mobile access will make branchless banking and remote payments possible, especially for the semi-urban and rural customer, boosting financial inclusion and bringing 47% of the unbanked and under-banked adult population into the formal banking channel.
Srinivas Nidugondi, senior VP and head of mobile financial solutions, Mahindra Comviva, commented: “Payments and small finance banks will complement the core banking sector by enabling an ecosystem that improves last-mile connectivity. It will be based on a self-service model, ushering a digital payments revolution, which will help in accelerating India’s journey towards a cashless society. Also, for ensuring a greater user experience, payments banks will need to focus on contextual and locational awareness in order to guide customers through their entire buying journey.”
Added Nidugondi: “Mobility will be the key lever in the fast evolving Indian banking landscape. Acknowledging this change, Mahindra Comviva has enhanced its leading mobile financial solution mobiquity to meet the needs of the payments and small finance banks in India.”
mobiquity is designed to integrate rapidly and seamlessly with a wide ecosystem of utility companies, merchants, money transfer operators and third party payment systems, creating a converged ecosystem, powered by interoperability.
A highly scalable solution, mobiquity allows rapid customer acquisitions and accommodates high volume-low value transactions, which are typical of the Indian market. The solution’s flexible architecture enables a distribution network of multiple hierarchies based on business requirements and market demand.
Commenting on the development, Vamsi Madhav, VP mobile financial solutions at Mahindra Comviva, said that mobiquity, “…shares RBI’s vision of improving financial inclusion by providing small savings accounts and payment and remittance services to the underserved segments such as the migrant labour workforce, low income households, small businesses, and other entities in the unorganized sector”. Madhav noted that Mahindra Comviva aims, “…to bring benefits to both consumers and financial service providers by enabling real time, low cost financial transactions, in a secured, technology-driven environment.”
