Recognized for its Innovation on the use of the Point Of Sale (PoS) device for Financial Inclusion
New Delhi, June 15, 2015: – India’s pioneering Payments Solution provider, Oxigen Services (India) Pvt. Ltd was felicitated with an “Order-of-Merit Award” at the 40th Skoch Summit by Mr. S. Ramadorai at the International Convention Hall, BSE, Dalal Street, Mumbai, held on 11th & 12th June 2015. Oxigen was awarded in recognition of its cutting-edge ‘Oxigen Innovation project’ that led to the development of a Point Of Sale (PoS) device to aid Financial Inclusion.
Pramod Saxena, CMD Oxigen Services commented, “This is a moment of great honor and pride for us, as our months of research and hard work have been acknowledged. The whole idea of the product was inspired by major challenges of banking access for the mainstream Bottom of Pyramid population. The innovation of our unique Point of Sale device coupled with a biometric linked with Aadhaar and the Oxigen Wallet is a move towards creating a payment system in rural areas and enabling financial empowerment. We thank the esteemed jury for the Skoch Award which recognizes our effort in this direction and makes us more determined towards realizing this mission.”
In India, although 130 million Jan Dhan accounts have been opened, yet the number of actual transacting accounts is low as the account holders need to travel from distant places to the bank or BC locations to transact. On the other hand, over 100 million RuPay cards have been issued but there is no card acceptance infrastructure to transact as ATMs are virtually non-existent in villages. Based on the above mentioned learning, Oxigen developed a strategy towards implementing the Financial Inclusion objectives of the Government of India in a cost efficient and practical manner. The broad framework of this strategy is drawn from some of the key initiatives taken by the government in the last several years viz.
- Technology integration using Aadhaar network and integration
- Government subsidies & cash transfers
- Providing access to banking services
- The inability of banks to set up brick and mortar branches in rural areas
Within the above framework, Oxigen developed a robust strategy to address these issues. This centered on developing a universal device that could handle multiple functions and at the same time be cost effective. Consequently, it came up with a unique solution that now focuses on creating a powerful rural payment ecosystem in an interoperable environment. Oxigen introduced a Point of sales device that has the capability of being the core of a powerful rural payments ecosystem while addressing the challenges faced in the PMJDY, Rupay card acceptance and DBT cash transfers to beneficiary accounts and enabling their withdrawals.
Post implementation, the Oxigen business model was able to successfully complete RBI cash-in/cash-out pilot using Biometric (Aadhaar) enabled PoS in over 80 villages in Odisha and Bihar.
The Telco, Bank and form factor agnostic model became the first non-bank to connect to NPCI and reach top position in total tranx (1.3 Million+). It also became the first to deploy e-KYC at retail on its POS/Web infrastructure. Also differentiating it from similar projects by peers is the innovative model’s readiness to meet the Government’s objective of “Direct Benefit Transfer” and the low cost GPRS PoS that is customized for Rural deployment.
The Skoch Awards are widely covered by the media and the nominal fee collected through registration for attending the conference also goes towards supporting the less fortunate.
About Oxigen:
Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd. is India’s Largest Payments Solutions Provider. Oxigen is powered with 10 years of service excellence in digital business of micro payments of services and remittances in a ‘real time’ environment. Oxigen is in the business of service aggregation and distribution, utilising mobile for online payment processing and provides money transfer services. This business is built to service the nation’s Telecom/DTH Operators, multiple Services Providers and Banks, pan India.
Oxigen has a retail footprint of 130,000 outlets and has processed over 2 billion transactions to date with a current transaction volume rate of 600 million transactions per annum. Oxigen has a large customer base of over 150 million customers. Large bouquet of services is integrated into a single transaction & payment processing platform, including Prepaid, Postpaid & Subscription based services like Mobile Recharges, Bill Payments, Ticketing and Subscriptions for all leading service providers across a wide spectrum of industries, like, Telecom, Direct‐to‐home TV, Internet Broadband, Travel (Railways/Airlines/Bus), Cinema/Movie Tickets, Utility Bill Payments, Gaming, Music & Movie downloads, etc.
Oxigen PoS and the biometric scanner have demonstrated par excellent performance. The integrated system of scanner combined with transaction on the PoS is working exceptionally well with Oxigen providing services like eKYC, Money Transfers, Recharges & Bill Payments.
Oxigen’s Mobile Wallet “Oxigen Wallet” is India’s First Non Bank Mobile Wallet, approved by RBI, which is enabled to make Instant Money Transfers, to nearly 70+ banks using NPCI’s Immediate Payment Service (IMPS). 170+ Banks are also enabled for NEFT payments. Oxigen has 5 million mobile wallets using the mobile or digital money.
Oxigen works on Financial Inclusion and is a Business Correspondent to India’s premier banks, SBI, RBL Bank and ICICI bank, enabling services such as account opening, deposits /withdrawals and money transfers, and reaching these services to villages through multiple marketing engagement drives with a CSR focus (health & education).
Oxigen is further well-positioned to enter the payments bank space riding on the strength of cost effective technology, experience in micro payments, its well demonstrated transaction processing capability, its customer facing service delivery and capability of managing a nationwide network.
The company works closely with banks and regulatory bodies for enablement of various microfinance initiatives of the Government of India, to promote services like BC or Kiosk Banking, UID related Aadhaar, NPCI/IMPS based Money Transfer services, Electronic Benefit Transfers, and more.
Visit us online at www.myoxigen.com and www.oxigenwallet.com