Promoting Financial Inclusion - United Nations Development ...

operations management and portfolio
control. Its product ‘Sayana Ravi’ is a credit
scoring solution for MFIs serving the micro
credit customer. It involves tailored credit
scoring, third party verification and risk
management services.
Approximately the product mix of
FINO is NREGA 40%, EBT 30% and NFA
30%. In addition to the above discussed
services, FINO is also actively involved
in promoting financial literacy among its
clients. Its approach to financial literacy is
outlined in Box C.8.
Viability of FINO Business Model
On the viability of FINO business model, a
senior professional from CEMG comments
that ‘the business model is not unviable in
the long run and is profitable. FINO has
already reached break-even. It is important
to achieve scale of operations in this model
to make it viable. Cross selling of products is
the key to achieve profitability. FINO aims
to offer a whole bouquet of products and
services to the customers like: EBT, NFA,
insurance, remittances, utility bill payments,
and micro-loans.’ He feels that ‘if the policy
support from government continues, FINO
will be able to build a successful model of
financial inclusion.’
C.5 FINO TATKAAL—A
REMITTANCE SERVICE FOR
MIGRANT WORKERS
FINO through its subsidiary FFF and
network of 10,000 bandhus aims to provide
a host of financial services to its customers.
One such service which is in high demand is
remittance facility for the people who have
migrated from rural areas to metropolitan
cities/urban areas. Recognizing this
demand, FINO launched the FINO Tatkaal
services in collaboration with Union Bank
of India (UBI).
The remittance services provided by
FINO are becoming immensely popular
due to a vast unmet demand for transfer of
money by migrant workers to far flung areas
of the country. This scheme was started in
Dharavi, Mumbai and is currently offered
in Mumbai and Delhi for remittances to
remote parts of the country. As per the
company’s social responsibility report,
FINO plans to extend this service to other
parts of the country as well. As per 2009-10
data, approximately 3,000 transactions are
conducted on a daily basis.
TARGET POPULATION
FINO’s target clients are migrant citizens
who come to cities in search for livelihood
and need to send money to their dependents
living in far off rural, sometimes inaccessible
areas. In this regard, FINO Tatkaal provides
a safe, secure, fast and easily available
remittance opportunity, which works even
outside banking hours.
TECHNOLOGY EMPLOYED
FINO provides remittance services through
formal remittance delivery mechanism using
biometric enabled smart cards, which are held
by end customers. This chip embedded card
comprises of all basic information about the
customers such as biometric identification,
demographic details, product relationships,
their status and transaction and also bears a
photograph. Such smart cards ensure correct
identification of members, without the
need for any PIN/password. Each card has
a Unique Relationship Number (URN)/
FINO chip number imprinted upon it, which
is used for identification of transactions. The
card can maintain up to 8 relationships with
financial or non-financial institutions along
with their individual transaction history of
up to 10 transactions.
TRANSACTIONS
The BC agents are also equipped with a
kit, which comprises of hand held devices
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