Technology for MSMEs: Spice Money, the rural fintech company, announced building a digital financial services platform for consumers from rural and semi-urban India in partnership with Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
The new platform aims to introduce products across three key segments: financial services, entrepreneur solutions, and healthcare services.
According to the company’s spokesperson, pilots are underway for savings and credit-related products under the financial services category. “We will first prioritise introducing financial services solutions followed by entrepreneur solutions such as CRM and accounting software, and healthcare services including diagnostic and telemedicine services will be the last to be rolled out,” she said on the condition of anonymity. The timeline for rolling out this product was not shared.
In recent launches, Spice Money introduced cash collection services such as EMI collection and enterprise cash management and government services (such as pan card creation) in the Q4 of FY2023.
“We are looking to build on the rural market opportunities of today, which include credit and savings, while also investing in the disruptive revenue pools of tomorrow to address future rural customer demands,” said Sanjeev Kumar, Co-Founder, Executive Director, and CEO of Spice Money.
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Up till now, Spice Money has onboarded 12 lakh merchants across 700 districts covering 75 per cent of India’s pin codes. It has about 20 million monthly customers using its services like AADHAR enabled payment system for cash withdrawal, mini ATM, loans, bill payments, online shopping, and mPoS services.
Over the years, India has made long strides in financial and digital inclusion as a result of the government’s initiatives like the Jan Dhan Yojana, AADHAR, and UPI along with the Digital India campaign. Under the Jan Dhan Yojana, over 48.9 crores of bank accounts have been opened across the country, according to government figures. India also recorded 8.8 billion UPI transactions in April 2023.
