The Hindu Business Line : Reliance Money entering rural areas

New venture: Mr Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Director and CEO, Reliance Money, and Ms Christina Gold, Worldwide CEO, Western Union, at the unveiling of Reliance Money Express in Bangalore on Saturday. —

Our Bureau

Bangalore, Sept. 1 Financial inclusion has so far remained a topic for discussion in seminars and symposiums. But Reliance Money Ltd (RML) has quietly taken financial inclusion beyond this level and used it for penetrating rural India.

The Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Sudip Bandyopadhyay, told Business Line that the company intended opening 10,000 outlets in the rural and semi-urban regions. He said, “This will be the first phase and we intend t o have a presence in at least 5,165 tehsils by March 2008.”

Reliance Money is an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group entity and a group company of Reliance Capital. Currently it has over 3,400 outlets.

Job opportunities

However, in this effort, RML would have only about 1,000 outlets. The remaining would be opened through partnerships in the identified locations, Mr Bandyopadhyay said. This venture would create a demand for at least 60,000 people in these regions.

The second phase, expected to take off next year, would see the company doubling the number of outlets covering North-East and fringes of the Northern regions.

Through these outlets, Mr Bandyopadhyay said the company would provide investment opportunities to customers.

He said Reliance Money also intends to distribute the parent company’s proposals for entering into retail loan products.

The company would also offer gold in affordable denominations. It intends to offer one gram and half gram gold coins through the outlets. Currently, gold is offered only in coinages of 8 gm and 10 gm.

Trading kiosks

In addition, RML also intends to open trading kiosks through the country. Such kiosks would function as electronic brokerage and would provide investment advice to intending investors. The plan, Mr Bandyopadhyay said, is to open 10,000 such kiosks.

Talks were under way with Barista Coffee and CMC Ltd, for opening such outlets at their respective premises for easy access to investors, he said.

RML today also launched its re-branded money transfer service, Reliance Money Express. This service, earlier branded as Travelmate, was acquired from Kuaoni Group.

Reliance Money Express is already handling close to 1,00,000 transactions per day with an average inward remittance of $1.4 billion.

The fees would be shared on a 50:50 basis between the originators and RML that include Western Union.

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