Over 90 percent of India’s population or 1.2 billion work force are employed in the informal sector; most of these individuals receive their salary in cash. Layers of subcontracting - “middlemen” - through which much of the informal sector gains employment make it difficult to convert their salary from cash to electronic payment. While nearly all of these cash earners’ retail transactions continue to take place in cash, over 80 percent of all retail transactions - amounting to over US$800 billion - in India today take place in cash.

Eko, using its patented technology, caters largely to low and moderate-income customers who earn between US$150 and $800 per month in cash. Eko enables these individuals to use a cash-in point / merchant and a smart phone to convert cash to digital and make payment for 11 different services provisioned by 23 service provider partners. These services include money remittance - Eko’s hook transaction and currently the dominant service in terms of total transaction value - utility bill payments, recharge for prepaid telephony and prepaid television, cross-border transfers from India-to-Nepal, health and auto insurance, online shopping, Aadhar enabled payment services and MSME lending. more