Source: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703846604575447420497483404-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwNzEyNDcyWj.html
Which pesticide will protect my crops?
It's a question most farmers in insect-ridden rural India ask themselves or their neighbors. But it's also a question to which very few have the correct answer.
What's the best fertilizer? How do you get rid of bugs? India's farmers long had only their neighbors to turn to. A mobile platform by Tata Consultancy Services is changing that, providing personalized advice through low-end handsets.
That was the inspiration behind mKRISHI, a platform developed by Tata Consultancy Services to provide personalized advice to Indian farmers on low-end mobile phones. TCS, an Asian Innovation Awards finalist, spent two years studying farming patterns in rural India and developing methods to connect farmers to agricultural experts, with the belief that technology could jump-start some of India's seemingly ancient agricultural practices.
"It appears that there is a last-mile gap between farmers and agricultural experts," said Arun Pande, the head of TCS Innovation Labs and the leader behind mKRISHI. "In the absence of correct information and advice which is specific to him, the farmer relies on what other farmers do—or on his traditional wisdom."
In 2007, Mr. Pande traveled through different parts of rural India to meet farmers and understand their business. After listening to their concerns—Will it rain enough in my village this season? Will my crop catch my neighbor's crop disease? Where can I take out a loan?—he saw the opportunity to grow that business by providing personalized responses to such questions.
"If one analyzes the questions, one finds them to be quite specific to a farmer's immediate environment and context," Mr. Pande said. "Hence, the information or advice given should be personalized to his need."
MKRISHI, whose name combines "m" for "mobile" and "krishi," which refers to agriculture in many Indian languages, costs a farmer between $1 and $2 a month. TCS partners with wireless operators to allow farmers to download the platform on high-end phones, and TCS has set up "mini-mobile sites" that farmers can visit to have the platform installed on low-end phones.
The platform's technology not only allows farmers to submit questions to experts, but also provides environment-specific details that give the experts a kind of agricultural map of the issue at hand. For example, when a farmer enters his location on mKRISHI, agricultural sensors connect to geo-location services like GPS and Google Earth to deliver local weather, soil conditions, common pests and food-grain prices to the expert on the other end. Farmers can also attach photos if they have mobile cameras.
"The mobile phone overcomes the lack of power and wire-line communication infrastructure in rural areas, enabling farmers to get advice one-on-one from experts," Mr. Pande said.
The experts, who have at least two years of agricultural study or experience, access mKRISHI on the Web, where each query is automatically assigned an identification number and an "Open" status. Six experts—two in Punjab and four in Uttar Pradesh—currently work on mKRISHI, but Mr. Pande said only 5% to 10% of questions are complex enough to merit consultation with an expert.
"We plan to provide expert system tools to agriculture workers to improve quality of their advice, and we provide FAQ and best practices on the farmer's mobile phone," Mr. Pande said. "This reduces the number of routine queries coming to the expert for response.
"Once the number of farmers and number of queries increase, we plan to involve agricultural workers with three to five years of field experience," he added.
Kamaldeep Singh, an expert since July 2009 and a research fellow at Punjab Agricultural University, works on mKRISHI on a daily basis. He calls the platform a "constant collaboration" between farmers and experts, rather than a one-time or one-way service.
"Whenever a question arrives, I answer it within six hours," Mr. Singh said. "Every day, I receive voice messages from farmers through the Internet."
TCS launched mKRISHI in 2009 in the agricultural states of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, where it now serves about 500 farmers. But TCS believes at least 1,000 farmers benefit via the farmers' social networks.
"It is very much helpful if they use this practice collaboratively," said Mr. Singh. "If they have knowledge, they will go to pesticide sellers and tell them, 'That chemical we require; that one we do not require.'"
Still, it's still only the beginning for mKRISHI—a "limited commercial launch," Mr. Pande says. Eventually, TCS hopes to partner with other major IT companies "and generate thousands of micro enterprises in villages" serving 50,000 farmers. Besides improving the platform with new tools, TCS sees its responsibility as playing "the leadership role in creating a consortium of partners and facilitating village entrepreneurship," Mr. Pande said.
To that end, the 58-year-old entrepreneur hopes soon to take mKRISHI abroad. So far, TCS has been invited to the Philippines and Ghana to demonstrate the platform in local languages.
"Farmers should feel secure knowing that they can get in touch with an expert anytime, anywhere," Mr. Pande said.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Mobile Service Targets Cambodia's 'Unbanked'
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703597204575484101756117656.html?mod=WSJ_article_related
How do you roll out a banking service in a place where most people don't have bank accounts?
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. tackled that question in developing WING, a banking and payment system it launched in Cambodia early last year.
In Phnom Penh, said Peter Dalton, ANZ's general manager for innovation, it's not uncommon for workers to send money to relatives in rural areas via a taxi-bound courier, which is risky as well as expensive. The Melbourne, Australia, bank estimates that only about 500,000 of the country's 14 million population have bank accounts, but "there is a need for saving and sending money," he said.
In addition to "unbanked" consumers, there are the "underbanked"—those who have bank accounts but don't have ready access to them because branches and automated teller machines are rare in many parts of the country, Mr. Dalton said.
A large number of Cambodians do have cellphones, though. WING works on four of the country's major mobile networks—hello, qb, Mfone and Smart Mobile—via a simple interface. Customers enter their account numbers and personal identification numbers, then see a menu of options that includes checking their balances, paying bills and sending money.
To send money, they enter the recipient's WING account number, or if the funds are going to someone who doesn't have a WING account, the person's mobile-phone number. (Funds are tied to the WING account, not the phone, so a customer won't lose his money even if his phone is lost or stolen.)
Recipients are notified by a text message when the transfer is complete. ANZ charges about 50 cents to send the equivalent of $20, a notable savings when compared with the $1 to $2 that Cambodian couriers typically cost.
There are now some 150,000 WING accounts, and Mr. Dalton said he wouldn't be surprised to see the service reach 200,000 customers by early next year. ANZ hasn't set a target number, however, he said. "We love the growth rates that we have now."
WING customers can access their accounts and send money through their phones.
In addition to the technological challenges of creating a mobile-payment service, ANZ had to figure out a cost-effective way to introduce it "to people who have never seen this before," he said. To do that, the company enlisted a fleet of 1,800 "pilots," part-time workers who sign up new customers and teach them how WING works. They receive a commission for each new sign-up and help spread the word about the program, often at markets and other high-traffic areas.
"There comes a time when you need cash," Mr. Dalton acknowledged, and that's where WING's Cash X-Press comes in. About 500 outlets are located throughout Cambodia's 24 provinces, and there WING customers can deposit and receive money through the service.
The Cash X-Press outlets, like the WING pilots, are another way of marketing the service, but they also help keep its costs down because they serve many of the same functions as ATMs, which are more expensive to build and maintain.
ANZ, which is working with its ANZ Royal subsidiary in Cambodia, plans to extend WING to support more types of billing, such as electricity and water, for its customers, and it hopes to offer the ability to transfer funds in other currencies, such as dollars.
It is also interested in getting local employers signed up to use the service. Cambodia's garment industry, for example, still largely pays workers in cash, which results in long lines on paydays, Mr. Dalton said. Using WING would allow an employer to pay its work force much faster and with fewer opportunities for error.
In addition to tapping a growing mobile-payment market, Mr. Dalton said WING promotes business development and a stronger understanding of how money works among its user base, particularly when it comes to saving. It also gives customers in poor areas an alternative to informal couriers and loans, which often carry high fees and theft risks.
"We think this is a service that encourages both economic and social development," he said. "You can actually generate more healthy economies."
How do you roll out a banking service in a place where most people don't have bank accounts?
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. tackled that question in developing WING, a banking and payment system it launched in Cambodia early last year.
In Phnom Penh, said Peter Dalton, ANZ's general manager for innovation, it's not uncommon for workers to send money to relatives in rural areas via a taxi-bound courier, which is risky as well as expensive. The Melbourne, Australia, bank estimates that only about 500,000 of the country's 14 million population have bank accounts, but "there is a need for saving and sending money," he said.
In addition to "unbanked" consumers, there are the "underbanked"—those who have bank accounts but don't have ready access to them because branches and automated teller machines are rare in many parts of the country, Mr. Dalton said.
A large number of Cambodians do have cellphones, though. WING works on four of the country's major mobile networks—hello, qb, Mfone and Smart Mobile—via a simple interface. Customers enter their account numbers and personal identification numbers, then see a menu of options that includes checking their balances, paying bills and sending money.
To send money, they enter the recipient's WING account number, or if the funds are going to someone who doesn't have a WING account, the person's mobile-phone number. (Funds are tied to the WING account, not the phone, so a customer won't lose his money even if his phone is lost or stolen.)
Recipients are notified by a text message when the transfer is complete. ANZ charges about 50 cents to send the equivalent of $20, a notable savings when compared with the $1 to $2 that Cambodian couriers typically cost.
There are now some 150,000 WING accounts, and Mr. Dalton said he wouldn't be surprised to see the service reach 200,000 customers by early next year. ANZ hasn't set a target number, however, he said. "We love the growth rates that we have now."
WING customers can access their accounts and send money through their phones.
In addition to the technological challenges of creating a mobile-payment service, ANZ had to figure out a cost-effective way to introduce it "to people who have never seen this before," he said. To do that, the company enlisted a fleet of 1,800 "pilots," part-time workers who sign up new customers and teach them how WING works. They receive a commission for each new sign-up and help spread the word about the program, often at markets and other high-traffic areas.
"There comes a time when you need cash," Mr. Dalton acknowledged, and that's where WING's Cash X-Press comes in. About 500 outlets are located throughout Cambodia's 24 provinces, and there WING customers can deposit and receive money through the service.
The Cash X-Press outlets, like the WING pilots, are another way of marketing the service, but they also help keep its costs down because they serve many of the same functions as ATMs, which are more expensive to build and maintain.
ANZ, which is working with its ANZ Royal subsidiary in Cambodia, plans to extend WING to support more types of billing, such as electricity and water, for its customers, and it hopes to offer the ability to transfer funds in other currencies, such as dollars.
It is also interested in getting local employers signed up to use the service. Cambodia's garment industry, for example, still largely pays workers in cash, which results in long lines on paydays, Mr. Dalton said. Using WING would allow an employer to pay its work force much faster and with fewer opportunities for error.
In addition to tapping a growing mobile-payment market, Mr. Dalton said WING promotes business development and a stronger understanding of how money works among its user base, particularly when it comes to saving. It also gives customers in poor areas an alternative to informal couriers and loans, which often carry high fees and theft risks.
"We think this is a service that encourages both economic and social development," he said. "You can actually generate more healthy economies."
Tata creates inexpensive water purifier
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704293604575343340396637802.html
MUMBAI—Thomas Edison, widely known as the father of the electrical age, would probably not have imagined that a product inspired by his most famous invention—the electric light bulb—would be one that wouldn't use electricity.
Tata's Swach (the Hindi word for clean) is a water filter that uses natural materials and nanotechnology to purify water, doesn't need electricity, meets U.S. Environmental Protection Agency norms for bacteria and costs less than $22. It was inspired by Edison's electric bulb, but, unlike that invention, it was developed for consumers in rural India who don't always have access to electricity.
The Swach, which means "clean" in Hindi, purifies water with the aid of rice husk ash, a byproduct of making polished rice.
"Right from the beginning, we were very clear that this product had to be developed keeping in mind households that didn't have electricity," said Sabaleel Nandy, head of the water-purifier business at Tata Chemicals Ltd. "It was always meant to be a poor man's device."
When Tata Chemicals and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. first began work in 2006 on the idea of a water-purification system made up of natural materials, the brief given to the innovation team by R. Gopalakrishnan, vice chairman of Tata Chemicals, was: Do for drinking water what Edison did for lighting through his electric bulb.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan was inspired by the concept of an earlier water filter conceived and developed by Tata Research Development & Design Centre, the Pune-based R&D division of TCS. That filter used rice-husk ash, which is derived after burning rice husk or chaff, a byproduct of polished rice, as the main filtering component. The water filter, called Sujal, used a matrix of materials—such as rice-husk ash, pebbles, Portland cement, nylon mesh and sand—and screened out contaminants and sediments. But, with its purification capability being 85%, it didn't guarantee freedom from waterborne diseases.
Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons, wasn't satisfied. He wanted the company to develop a water purifier that was 100% safe. Enter Mr. Gopalakrishnan. He challenged his team to create a bulb-like water purifier that consumers could fix on any existing water-storage unit. Something that was high on functionality, low on cost and 100% safe.
The result: After four years of toil, Tata unveiled the Swach last December. In a country like India, this water-purification system may just prove to be a boon. In the year through March, electricity demand exceeded supply by 10.1%, according to the Central Electric Authority of India.
Mr. Nandy calls the the Swach "the world's lowest-cost water purifier," providing safe water at about 0.22 cents a liter, at a cost of just 999 rupees ($21.36) for the entire unit and 299 rupees for a refill cartridge.
The Swach's cartridge, a key component of the system, resembles Edison's electric bulb and is made up of a composite of rice-husk ash (a highly porous material derived out of paddy husk) and fine particles of nano-silver, which inhibits bacteria growth.
Just like an electric bulb, the cartridge also has a fuse. In this case, the fuse prevents water from passing through once its purifying capacity of 3,000 liters of water is exhausted.
According to a 2006 Unicef report, more than 125 million children under age 5, most from developing countries, live in households without access to a clean drinking-water source. Swach hopes to bridge this gap between technology and the basic human need of clean drinking water.
"There is no awareness about the need for filtration among most Indians, with a mere 6% of urban households and 1% of rural households using water purifiers," said Ashvini Hiran, chief operating officer at Tata Chemicals. "Hence, the potential of the Swach is immense."
The company commercially launched the Swach in January in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka and hopes to expand across India by the end of the year, reaching sales of a million units.
"With our product, we are hoping to target nonusers and those who couldn't afford water purifiers due to affordability reasons and lack of awareness," said Mr. Hiran. "And we hope to achieve that through our awareness programs."
MUMBAI—Thomas Edison, widely known as the father of the electrical age, would probably not have imagined that a product inspired by his most famous invention—the electric light bulb—would be one that wouldn't use electricity.
Tata's Swach (the Hindi word for clean) is a water filter that uses natural materials and nanotechnology to purify water, doesn't need electricity, meets U.S. Environmental Protection Agency norms for bacteria and costs less than $22. It was inspired by Edison's electric bulb, but, unlike that invention, it was developed for consumers in rural India who don't always have access to electricity.
The Swach, which means "clean" in Hindi, purifies water with the aid of rice husk ash, a byproduct of making polished rice.
"Right from the beginning, we were very clear that this product had to be developed keeping in mind households that didn't have electricity," said Sabaleel Nandy, head of the water-purifier business at Tata Chemicals Ltd. "It was always meant to be a poor man's device."
When Tata Chemicals and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. first began work in 2006 on the idea of a water-purification system made up of natural materials, the brief given to the innovation team by R. Gopalakrishnan, vice chairman of Tata Chemicals, was: Do for drinking water what Edison did for lighting through his electric bulb.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan was inspired by the concept of an earlier water filter conceived and developed by Tata Research Development & Design Centre, the Pune-based R&D division of TCS. That filter used rice-husk ash, which is derived after burning rice husk or chaff, a byproduct of polished rice, as the main filtering component. The water filter, called Sujal, used a matrix of materials—such as rice-husk ash, pebbles, Portland cement, nylon mesh and sand—and screened out contaminants and sediments. But, with its purification capability being 85%, it didn't guarantee freedom from waterborne diseases.
Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons, wasn't satisfied. He wanted the company to develop a water purifier that was 100% safe. Enter Mr. Gopalakrishnan. He challenged his team to create a bulb-like water purifier that consumers could fix on any existing water-storage unit. Something that was high on functionality, low on cost and 100% safe.
The result: After four years of toil, Tata unveiled the Swach last December. In a country like India, this water-purification system may just prove to be a boon. In the year through March, electricity demand exceeded supply by 10.1%, according to the Central Electric Authority of India.
Mr. Nandy calls the the Swach "the world's lowest-cost water purifier," providing safe water at about 0.22 cents a liter, at a cost of just 999 rupees ($21.36) for the entire unit and 299 rupees for a refill cartridge.
The Swach's cartridge, a key component of the system, resembles Edison's electric bulb and is made up of a composite of rice-husk ash (a highly porous material derived out of paddy husk) and fine particles of nano-silver, which inhibits bacteria growth.
Just like an electric bulb, the cartridge also has a fuse. In this case, the fuse prevents water from passing through once its purifying capacity of 3,000 liters of water is exhausted.
According to a 2006 Unicef report, more than 125 million children under age 5, most from developing countries, live in households without access to a clean drinking-water source. Swach hopes to bridge this gap between technology and the basic human need of clean drinking water.
"There is no awareness about the need for filtration among most Indians, with a mere 6% of urban households and 1% of rural households using water purifiers," said Ashvini Hiran, chief operating officer at Tata Chemicals. "Hence, the potential of the Swach is immense."
The company commercially launched the Swach in January in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka and hopes to expand across India by the end of the year, reaching sales of a million units.
"With our product, we are hoping to target nonusers and those who couldn't afford water purifiers due to affordability reasons and lack of awareness," said Mr. Hiran. "And we hope to achieve that through our awareness programs."
Expanding Banking in India through new automated teller machines
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703700904575391460677186520-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwNjEyNDYyWj.html
A new automated teller machine aims to expand personal banking in rural India, where high temperatures, power outages and identity theft make for particularly challenging terrain.
Vortex Engineering is giving rural Indians the gift of banking. The southern India-based company has designed the "Gramateller" automated teller machine, which can run on solar power and dispense heavily used bills. WSJ's Linda Blake reports.
Vortex Engineering Ltd., an Asian Innovation Awards finalist, designed its Gramateller ATM with a backup battery system, solar power panels, a 50-degree-centigrade operating range and a fingerprint identification system—all factors that make it a viable ATM in developing areas, said Vortex founder Lakshminarayan Kannan.
Mr. Kannan, 42 years old, has spent the last two decades working with companies and NGOs on rural-development technologies, such as a special suspension system to transport fragile medical equipment for mobile health care in Karnataka. He founded Vortex in 2001 and set the company to work on various projects, including one designed to more efficiently convert cotton into yarn.
In 2004, he was approached by a group of researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology who were looking for ways to improve financial access in rural India. The team's aim, Mr. Kannan said, directly overlapped with his own.
"Whatever we were to produce had to be a person-independent, technology-driven channel," he said. "To be dependent on infrastructure would be too expensive."
An ATM fit the bill. Fewer than 25% of India's 45,000 ATMs are located in rural and semi-urban areas, where 70% of the country's 1.1 billion people reside, according to Vortex research. As many as 65% of Indians don't have bank accounts, severely hindering their chances of saving, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry, an association of Indian business leaders.
A team of Vortex engineers worked with the IIT researchers to design an ATM that not only would operate in rural India, but also would inspire trust in the machines among local villagers who may have never even seen a computer before. This meant including a biometric method of identification—instead of entering a PIN, the user presses his or her thumb on a glass fingerprint reader—as well as the ability to immediately switch to a four-hour backup battery during voltage fluctuations and power failures.
Even assuring villagers the money is authentic was a concern. Vortex, based in Chennai, designed its machine to process soiled notes that "feel real" to rural dwellers who aren't accustomed to—and often are suspicious of—the clean, crisp bills that come out of other ATMs.
The ATMs use customer fingerprints as an authentication measure. Vortex says it hopes to put the low-cost machines in every village in India.
"New currency is loaded, and in rural areas, used, old currency is also loaded," Mr. Kannan said. "Often bills have small nicks, cuts and holes, which our ATM is tolerant to."
An unexpected benefit of the ATMs is that they encourage customers to save more money, something that didn't become clear until pilot tests near Chennai.
"If people have in their close vicinity a source of money whenever they need, and they know it's assured, then they actually tend to take less money than they are entitled to, and they save the rest," Mr. Kannan said.
Vortex has invested $6 million in its Gramateller ATM since 2004, producing nearly 200 machines to date. Mr. Kannan said 25 to 30 banks in rural areas currently operate between one and five ATMs each. Among them is State Bank of India, the largest state-owned financial services company in India.
The bank is deploying 1,000 ATMs in rural areas, 545 of which will be supplied by Vortex Engineering, said Amiya Deka, deputy general manager of SBI's ATM division.
He cited the Gramateller's low cost, low power consumption, wide temperature range of operation, solar power generation, biometric authentication and "simple design" as factors in its selection.
Vortex's end goal is to have one ATM in each village in India. That's 650,000 ATMs, Mr. Kannan said, and even that won't be enough to put India on par with other countries.
"The U.S. and Europe have one ATM per 1,000 people. By the same yardstick, India needs one million ATMs," he said.
But for now, Vortex has set its sights on the sector of India where it believes financial access can have the most impact.
"Since we are a start-up and we have limited resources, we want to focus on rural India," Mr. Kannan said. "We thought: Let us be creative. Let us be pioneers."
A new automated teller machine aims to expand personal banking in rural India, where high temperatures, power outages and identity theft make for particularly challenging terrain.
Vortex Engineering is giving rural Indians the gift of banking. The southern India-based company has designed the "Gramateller" automated teller machine, which can run on solar power and dispense heavily used bills. WSJ's Linda Blake reports.
Vortex Engineering Ltd., an Asian Innovation Awards finalist, designed its Gramateller ATM with a backup battery system, solar power panels, a 50-degree-centigrade operating range and a fingerprint identification system—all factors that make it a viable ATM in developing areas, said Vortex founder Lakshminarayan Kannan.
Mr. Kannan, 42 years old, has spent the last two decades working with companies and NGOs on rural-development technologies, such as a special suspension system to transport fragile medical equipment for mobile health care in Karnataka. He founded Vortex in 2001 and set the company to work on various projects, including one designed to more efficiently convert cotton into yarn.
In 2004, he was approached by a group of researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology who were looking for ways to improve financial access in rural India. The team's aim, Mr. Kannan said, directly overlapped with his own.
"Whatever we were to produce had to be a person-independent, technology-driven channel," he said. "To be dependent on infrastructure would be too expensive."
An ATM fit the bill. Fewer than 25% of India's 45,000 ATMs are located in rural and semi-urban areas, where 70% of the country's 1.1 billion people reside, according to Vortex research. As many as 65% of Indians don't have bank accounts, severely hindering their chances of saving, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry, an association of Indian business leaders.
A team of Vortex engineers worked with the IIT researchers to design an ATM that not only would operate in rural India, but also would inspire trust in the machines among local villagers who may have never even seen a computer before. This meant including a biometric method of identification—instead of entering a PIN, the user presses his or her thumb on a glass fingerprint reader—as well as the ability to immediately switch to a four-hour backup battery during voltage fluctuations and power failures.
Even assuring villagers the money is authentic was a concern. Vortex, based in Chennai, designed its machine to process soiled notes that "feel real" to rural dwellers who aren't accustomed to—and often are suspicious of—the clean, crisp bills that come out of other ATMs.
The ATMs use customer fingerprints as an authentication measure. Vortex says it hopes to put the low-cost machines in every village in India.
"New currency is loaded, and in rural areas, used, old currency is also loaded," Mr. Kannan said. "Often bills have small nicks, cuts and holes, which our ATM is tolerant to."
An unexpected benefit of the ATMs is that they encourage customers to save more money, something that didn't become clear until pilot tests near Chennai.
"If people have in their close vicinity a source of money whenever they need, and they know it's assured, then they actually tend to take less money than they are entitled to, and they save the rest," Mr. Kannan said.
Vortex has invested $6 million in its Gramateller ATM since 2004, producing nearly 200 machines to date. Mr. Kannan said 25 to 30 banks in rural areas currently operate between one and five ATMs each. Among them is State Bank of India, the largest state-owned financial services company in India.
The bank is deploying 1,000 ATMs in rural areas, 545 of which will be supplied by Vortex Engineering, said Amiya Deka, deputy general manager of SBI's ATM division.
He cited the Gramateller's low cost, low power consumption, wide temperature range of operation, solar power generation, biometric authentication and "simple design" as factors in its selection.
Vortex's end goal is to have one ATM in each village in India. That's 650,000 ATMs, Mr. Kannan said, and even that won't be enough to put India on par with other countries.
"The U.S. and Europe have one ATM per 1,000 people. By the same yardstick, India needs one million ATMs," he said.
But for now, Vortex has set its sights on the sector of India where it believes financial access can have the most impact.
"Since we are a start-up and we have limited resources, we want to focus on rural India," Mr. Kannan said. "We thought: Let us be creative. Let us be pioneers."
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