Using mobility to drive financial inclusion throughout India

In the old days living in remote regions meant exclusion from vital services such as healthcare, education or banking because of the distance to populated areas . Not so any more. Adarsh Credit Co-operative Society, India’s largest credit co-operative society, was founded with a vision to provide financial services to every person no matter how remote on the premise that they already have access to mobile services.

Priyanka Modi, Managing Director at Adarsh, says only 35% of India’s population has a bank account. The company’s mission is to change that, and they are using SAP Mobile Platform to drive financial inclusion throughout the world’s seventh largest and second most populous country. Adarsh employs 3,000 office workers and 100,000 agents in the field to service one million customers — all from a basic feature phone.

SAP Mobile Platform (SMP) enables Adarsh to offer a seamless, personalized and contextually relevant experience to its members any time, and at any location across India. The power of the platform, says Adarsh’s CTO, is in the security, scalability and the integration to the bank’s core systems. Customers have the advantage of real-time services. They can get their balance at same time they make a deposit.

SMP makes life a whole lot easier for Akarsh’s field force as well. Previously, they spent hours waiting at the bank to make deposits and check customer accounts. Now, they can access the account directly at the customer’s location and look at the account together. The deposit is made in the customer’s presence, and he can see it himself. This kind of service inspires trust, and saves time for both parties. The customer can make financial transactions instantaneously without leaving his shop or farm, and the bank’s agent can spend more time working in the field, servicing existing customers and finding new ones.

One million customers may seem like a lot, but in a country of 1.2 billion, there’s plenty of room for expansion. Adarsh is working hard to build a cashless society and help raise the social and financial status of its members by fostering saving habits and providing technical and financial support.  With SMP, Adarsh customers now have a fast, easy and convenient way to conduct bank transactions in a secure, user-friendly, and cost-efficient fashion anywhere, any time.

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