Ind-e-cash

Background

In 2020 Reserve Bank of India initiated 1st COHORT Testing for Offline solutions.

Indian Bank participated in the SANDBOX testing with IND-e-Cash, NFC based solution with its technical partner Natural Support Consultancy Services (P) Ltd. who had qualified for the same at RBI.

SANDBOX testing was conducted at Ghargal Village in Solan, Himachal Pradesh

The testing was found successful at RBI (letter enclosed).

The same has found mention in EASE 4.0 under section:
TECH-ENABLED EASE OF BANKING

AP-14 Promote digital payments in semi-urban and rural areas*

&24

*E.g., Adoption of NFC-, Bharat QR-based payment solutions, etc. to increase the use of digital modes of payment

RBI and EASE 4.0

IND-e-Cash has been successfully tested under the 1st COHORT under the aegis of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for Offline solutions for B2C working.

EASE 4.0

TECH-ENABLED EASE OF BANKING

AP-14 Promote digital payments in semi-urban and rural areas* &24.

*E.g., Adoption of NFC-, Bharat QR-based payment solutions, etc. to increase the use of digital modes of payment

Challenges to digitization

IND-e-Cash addresses the challenges faced to make financial transaction digital:

The current digital solutions are Mobile Based or online Card based systems.

Inconsistent internet connectivity in the rural hinterland leads to lower Transaction success rate & duplicity of transactions, shopkeepers avoid POS/BHIM, prefers cash.

Low Literacy levels make the understanding of using USSD (*99#) in feature phones, difficult, besides telecom charges & time consuming.

Majority population has no access to smartphones. This impacts adoption of Mobile based apps including BHIM, in these areas.

The majority of women in rural areas, who handle most of household purchases within the village, do not even have a feature phone.

Natural solution overcomes this limitation as we have observed 100 % success rates in Transactions during the Sand Box Testing with RBI at different villages across India.

About the Solution

Benefits of the solution :

Independent of internet connectivity when Transaction is done

100% Transaction success rate (Dependable)

Convenient, Simple & Easy to use (Adoption)

Average Transaction Time lower then cash (Acceptance)

Made in India :

No payment to be made to MASTER / VISA – saves precious foreign exchange

No dependency on any foreign vendor

No data sharing with any foreign vendor, data resides with the bank only

Other Features:

Integrated with Banks CBS system

Send messages to CBS for every transaction

DBT can be transferred to card

Card be toped-up at identified merchants

Ladies find it easy to carry the card instead of bundle of currency notes

Ideal for low value transactions

Shopkeeper syncs the transactions in machine to Server on 2G connectivity

The daily synchronized transactions will be updated to shop keepers CBS account

The solution

Customer

Gets a NFC / Hybrid cards

Loading can be done from his account with the bank

Transaction :

After purchase, touches card to machine, enters the payment amount

Transaction is done in offline mode

Updated balance of Card and Device is displayed

Merchant / Shop Owners

Gets a NFC device against his bank account

Synch to CBS :

Shopkeeper syncs the transactions in machine to Server, at his convenience, on 2G connectivity