During the annual Sankalp awards, FINO, a provider of technology to microfinance institutions, won the Growth Enterprise in Technology Sector Award. FINO has expanded its focus from solely building technologies for Financial Inclusion to now providing customers a holistic set of technology and operations services.

FINO Limited (FINO), leading providers of integrated technology platforms and delivery channels to enable sourcing and servicing of world’s micro customers, bagged the Growth Enterprise in Technology Sector Award at the recently held Sankalp Awards 2011.

FINO, founded in year 2006, has expanded the gamut of its operations from solely building technologies for Financial Inclusion to becoming an end-to-end Technology as well as Operational Services provider that can boast about its bottom of the pyramid (B-o-P) customer base of above 30 million. FINO today delivers integrated technology solutions to the mainstream by making high quality, low cost in-house technology, accessible for institutions like Banks, Microfinance Institutions, Government entities, Insurance companies to enable financial inclusion environment for the micro customers.

Mr. Manish Khera, CEO, FINO, while receiving the award said, “We strongly believe that technology can be leveraged to optimise reach towards all strata of the society for an inclusive and sustainable growth. FINOs’ endeavour has been to bring cost-effective technology solutions for businesses, banks and government to reach out to every un-banked individual in the society and we have successfully capitalized on it and have been duly recognized by the global business community for our efforts”.

FINO’s technology drives Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) implementation: FINO has worked closely with the Government of India on the RSBY, a key project aimed at providing health insurance to India’s BPL population. FINO contributed to the design and the technical specification for biometric smart card technology based delivery apparatus in a short span of 4 months, including Process flow design, Enrolment & card issuance specifications, Transaction system specifications, District kiosk and server guidelines, RSBY card renewal specifications and Smart Card layout.

FINO facilitated the standardization of the delivery platform, back-end database management system and data maintenance format to effectively reach out to the unserved/underserved markets. FINO’s technical application was the first to get certification from Standardization, Quality and Technical Certification (SQTC).

FINO, under the RSBY scheme, is spreading its reach to more than 96 districts in 5 states, with over 10 million enrolments out of the total 16.18 million BPL Households covered under RSBY.

FINO SURE: A micro-insurance solution for Insurance Companies
FINO’s micro-insurance solution, FINO SURE, enables Insurance companies to reach out to customers and serve the need, while maintaining financial viability. FINO SURE can be configured to serve Life, Non-Life and Weather insurance schemes of Insurance companies.

FINO’s technology architecture facilitates storing mammoth volumes of data which can be analysed and relevant information can be delivered to the government, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies etc.

FINO SURE has made the entire process from hospitalization to claim settlement, easy and expeditious, reducing administrative hassles, eliminating inordinate delays in delivery of benefits enabling cashless and paperless transactions, increasing efficient utilization of services and claim settlement, thus putting into place a foolproof system, bringing down the cost of delivery and increasing profitability.

The biometric smart card based delivery system spearheaded by FINO has thus unlocked a potential INR 45 billion micro-insurance market for health insurance companies, revolutionizing the sector both financially and socially.

FINO offers this technology either on license or Application Service Provider hosted basis.  FINO also offers services to originate and service the customers for financial institutions through its nationwide network of bandhus (agents) to the doorstep of millions of unbanked & under- banked households at bottom of the pyramid. FINO offers these business correspondent (B.C) services through FINO Fintech foundation.

FINO solutions are anchored around using hand-held devices to perform field operations and biometric authentication to validate the customer. FINO’s technology platform supports multiple front-end transaction points like branch, self-serve devices and mobiles besides the agents.

FINO, in India, has reached out to 23 states in India covering 309 districts and enabling door-to-door financial services at 40,000 villages. FINO has partnered with 23 banks (public and private), 17 Government entities and 4 Insurance agencies in India to  provide financial services to more than 28 million (as of February 2011) customers spread across the country.

About FINO:
FINO Limited (FINO) is an integrated technology platform and delivery channel, enabling sourcing and servicing of world’s micro customers. Built on a foundation of organic growth, FINO draws its strength from its unique integrated business model of Technology, Field Force, Central Operations and Products & Solutions bouquet. FINO’s Technology is built on a robust, scalable and comprehensive platform which is developed at the state of the art in-house R&D facility. Field Force are the pioneers in sourcing and servicing of micro-customers across range of products.  Central Operations have developed the ability to process and handle large volume of customer data and mitigate risk. FINO’s Products and Solutions enable opportunity for businesses to roll out multiple product strategy for consumption by micro-customers.

FINO is headquartered in Mumbai, with over 20,000 employees and business correspondents spread across 239 offices. FINO Limited, FINO Fintech Foundation and Intrepid are part of the FINO Group. The FINO Group is a majority-owned corporation by International Institutional investors like Intel Capital, HAV 3 Holdings (HSBC Group), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Indian Financial Institutions like ICICI Bank Group, Union Bank of India, Indian Bank, Corporation Bank and Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).

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