More Migrant Workers Wiring Money as ‘Eko’ Remits 4500Cr in One Year

Eko, a leading fintech company, has successfully implemented its remittance/ money transfer services across India with focus on customers earning in cash. During the financial year of 2016-17, Eko has processed remittances of around rupees 4500 crore with an YOY growth of 82 percent Through their integrations with API partners and merchants, Eko enables its merchants to remit money to several locations in India.

The year saw tremendous growth in the states of Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab especially where there was a significant migrant population from countries such as Nepal.

Founded in 2007, Eko is the only company globally that empowers customers to do secure financial transactions on their mobile phones, including basic feature phones, without installing any software on the phone or the SIM card if the customer so wishes. Eko has processed over rupees 20,000 crore worth of transactions, over 34 million transactions and over 15 million customers, most of whom are low to moderate income customers. In 2010, Eko was among the 'Nasscom Emerge 50 – The League of Ten for 2010', and the Indian chamber of commerce’s 50 merging companies which are redefining the benchmark of excellence for the next generation of SMEs.

Commenting on the achievement, Abhinav Sinha, cofounder and Chief Operating Officer, Eko India Financial Services Private Limited said, "Unlike most digital wallets which are converting digital money in credit / debit card and online banking into another form of digital money, Eko converts cash to digital money. Customers earning in cash is our key differentiator and our target customer. Our target segment has a huge need to remit money back home from urban cities to smaller cities and towns.

India’s remittance business is estimated to grow and we look forward to capitalizing on the opportunity; with our expertise in remittance business and our India-wide network of Eko retail agents. We want to make our customers financially digital. We are fully leveraging platforms and infrastructure including Aadhaar, NPCI, and smartphones,” Abhinav further added.

Eko released APIs for its domestic money transfer business which allows companies who have similar business models to plug in these APIs and extend the same to their channel partners. The APIs also allow development of innovative payment and financial services such as digital wallets, P2P transfers and in store and online payments. Eko is one of the top 2 merchant assisted IMPS transaction initiators in India. It also has the lowest transaction failure rates of 1.3 percent in the industry.