FSS, a Payments, and Fintech leader, today, announced the launch of FSS eFinclusiv, a second-generation financial inclusion solution that leverages the India Stack to promote financial deepening among underbanked customers.

India’s financial services landscape is rapidly evolving -- driven by a favorable regulatory environment, investments in the India Stack infrastructure and proliferation of mobile telephony services. Collectively these trends have improved financial services access and helped bring a wide segment of an entry-level customer into the financial mainstream. With 800M Indians having bank accounts, driving account usage by delivering a range of banking and payment products represents a big potential opportunity for digital financial service providers. Most customers and small businesses in India today do not fully participate in the formal financial system. For instance, according to the World Bank Global Findex Report 2017, in India, 7 per cent of customers use their accounts to save and the share of customers making digital payments is an approximate 30 percent.

Payments are a two-sided business, with the utility of the payment instrument dependent upon the number of points customers can transact. FSS eFinclusiv, an integrated payments suite, is designed to address the two-sided nature of payments. FSS eFinclusiv leverages the India Stack to bring consumers, merchants and suppliers of financial services, onto a single platform, generating network effects and fuelling transaction growth.

For customers, eFinclusiv supports account opening, cash deposits, withdrawals, money transfers and payments. The system supports card-based and card less transactions using the customer’s biometric (Aadhaar -- India’s national ID) throughout the process. For merchants, FSS eFinclusiv enables biometric-based payment acceptance using their mobile device. In addition, FSS eFinclusiv exploits the capabilities of the India Stack to offer electronic Know Your Customer, eSign and Aadhar Vault capabilities for cost-efficient and secure services delivery.

FSS eFinclusiv exposes APIS enabling digital service providers profitably collaborate with third party applications. The eFinclusiv APIs includes cash withdrawal, deposits, digital KYC and more. Banks benefit as it helps them deepen the traditional customer-bank relationship and rapidly grow market share.

Commenting on the launch, Suresh Rajagopalan, President Software Products, FSS said, “We have shown great progress in improving financial services access in India. This brings sizable business opportunities to capture new markets and drive adoption of financial products among underserved segments. FSS eFinclusiv provides a commercially viable pathway to achieve universal financial inclusion by helping digital financial service providers innovate and efficiently deliver a broad portfolio of products.”

Built leveraging the India Stack, FSS eFinclusiv offers a complete digital payments solution for advancing financial inclusion and empowering underserved segments. The key solution components include:

FSS eKYC: Aadhaar-enabled e-KYC processes help service providers fulfil their Know Your Customer requirements and halves costs and time relative to paper-intensive processes

FSS eSign: Allows customers with a valid Aadhaar card and a registered mobile number to use the service to sign documents, enabling a range of use cases from remote merchant on-boarding to supplier contacts and payments

FSS Digilocker Gateway: Allows customers to save as well as fetch personal documents from a  cloud-based repository (Digilocker account) for eSigning, Account, Loan Opening, eNACH

FSS Aadhaar Vault: Tokenizes Aadhaar numbers by replacing the underlying value with a unique equivalent. This removes identity information throughout the token domain where data can be vulnerable and, if stolen, used for fraudulent purposes

FSS API Hub: Exposes APIs for rapid prototyping of a new breed of added value services including micro-loans, micro-savings, insurance, creating additional monetization opportunities for service providers

FSS Aadhaar Enabled Payment Services: A doorstep agent banking solution, FSS AEPS leverages digital technology to expand the bank’s presence beyond traditional branches and provide services to dispersed rural and peri-urban populations

FSS AadhaarPay: Builds a scalable, acceptance network by enabling micro-merchants to use low-cost mobile devices for accepting Aadhaar-based payments.

FSS eFinclusiv’ modular architecture offers digital financial service providers the flexibility to deploy all or select service components. Hosted on FSSNeT, FSS’ private cloud, eFinclusiv enables services consumption on a pay-per-use model,  eliminating the need for upfront technology investments, thereby, transforming the economics and the ability to innovate for underserved segments.

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