e-Business & Financial Inclusion, Winner 2015

Name of Project: dharavimarket.com
Project Website: www.dharavimarket.com
Name of Organization: dharavi market
Organization Website: www.dharavimarket.com

E-commerce website connecting Dharavi’s micro-enterprises to global market

Dharavi is a locality in Mumbai, India, which houses one of the largest slums in the world. The Dharavi slum was founded in 1882 during the British colonial era. The slum grew in part because of an expulsion of factories and residents from the peninsular city centre by the colonial government, and from rural poor migrating into urban Mumbai (then called Bombay). It is currently a multi-religious, multi-ethnic, diverse settlement. Estimates of Dharavi’s total population vary between 7,00,000 and 10,00,000. Dharavi has an active informal economy in which numerous household enterprises employ many of the slum residents. It exports goods around the world. Leather, textiles and pottery products are among the goods made inside Dharavi by the slum residents. The total annual turnover has been estimated at over USD 500 million. Launched in 2014, DharaviMarket.com is a for profit initiative aimed at making the skills of the squatter settlement at Dharavi more accessible to the middle/upper classes while providing the local, skilled craftsmen and artisans direct access to local and global markets. It aims at providing, world-class quality goods at cheap prices as one would directly buy from the manufacturers while giving the craftsmen a price worth their craft and effort. It also aims to clear notions and misunderstandings about life in slums — slum dwellers are not criminals or beggars, they too have robust enterprising skills and intimate community life. Apart from the website which is a virtual retail space, the initiative has also developed a mobile app for Dharavi sellers who can upload information about their products on to the website using the app.

Name of Project: Paytm
Project Website: www.One97.com
Name of Organization: One97 Communications Ltd.
Organization Website: www.One97.com

Enabling millions to shop and pay using mobile phones In January 2014, One97 Communications launched Paytm, which has become India’s largest mobile payment and commerce platform. With current user base of more than 100 million, Paytm aims to bring half a billion Indians to the main stream of the economy using mobile payment, commerce and, soon to be launched, payment banking services. The company’s focus area is creating a platform where millions of small, medium and large merchants can sell to millions of customers from across the country in a seamless manner. Paytm empowers sellers by providing the technology to setup their online shop, run promotions, manage shipping and collect payments without any drastic changes in the way they do business. Paytm currently has 60,000 merchants out of which 90 per cent are small merchants. Some 60 per cent of these are based out of tier II and III towns where traditionally their customer base would have been severely limited by their geography. Paytm is the only commerce company (for physical goods) to have RBI licensed semi-closed prepaid mobile wallet. It also has a large number of diversified offerings which no competitor offers: recharges and bill payments, a full-fledged online and mobile marketplace, a payment gateway and a wallet accepted by thousands of merchants in India. Paytm sells to three crore customers, and, thus, provides a huge platform for sellers to display and sell their products. It has over 500 categories across which it has more than eight million stockkeeping units (SKUs) selling on its marketplace. With Paytm, customers across the country can discover merchants and buy from them even if they don’t have a credit or debit card. Using the Paytm app customers can fund their wallet from their bank accounts and then make payments. Today Paytm’s over 10 crore wallets generate 7.5 crore transactions per month through its marketplace and partners.

Name of Project: Financial Inclusion (Pradham Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana).
Project Website: www.gramtarang.org
Name of Organization: Gram Tarang Inclusive Development Services Pvt. Ltd.
Organization Website: www.gramtarang.org

Providing doorstep banking services in rural, urban areas

Established in 2011, Gram Tarang Inclusive Development Services Private Limited (GTIDS) is engaged in providing banking services in villages and urban areas using biometric devices. It employs Business Correspondent Agents (BCAs) who enable customers and beneficiaries to open zero balance bank accounts. The company recruits BCAs locally from villages or urban areas and collects a security deposit of rs 10,000 from each agent. It then equips each BCA with a laptop, smart card reader, bio-metric device, printer and a multi-sim Micromax data card to open accounts and perform transactions in the villages. BCAs are linked to the nearest base branch of the company’s partner banks and to start with they collect account opening forms from the base branches and submit the filled-in account opening forms with KYC documents to the branch managers. Simultaneously, they capture the data of the beneficiary, finger prints, photographs in the software provided by the company’s technology service provider (TSP) and send it to the TSP enabling them to process smart cards which are akin to debit cards. Beneficiaries have to carry their smart cards and should come in person to transact (deposit or withdraw) with the agents. At any point in time an agent has Rs. 10,000 with him to honour withdrawals and the agent being a resident of the same village can honour transactions without any stipulated working hours unlike branches. At present, GTIDS is currently working in 12 states of India in over 25,000 villages on behalf of 10 banks – Andhra Pragathi Gramin Bank, Allahabad Bank, Bihar Gramin Bank, Karnataka Gramin Vikas Bank, Nainital Gramin Bank, Punjab National Bank, UCO Bank, United Bank of India, Paschim Bengal Gramin Bank and HDFC Bank. So far, it has helped open more than 84 lakh no-frills accounts through 8,000 BCAs.