The Hindu Business Line : FINO tech offers biometric cards in unbanked areas

Coimbatore, Sept. 17 The Mumbai-based Financial Information Network and Operations Ltd (FINO), a multi-bank promoted company, providing smart-card based multi-application solutions to the ‘unbanked’, is in the process of scaling up its business this year. “We are keen to work with all financial institutions that serve the underprivileged masses both in the rural and semi-urban areas,” its CFO and President, Mr Rishi Gupta, told Business Line.

FINO has so far associated itself with four banks — Union Bank of India, Indian Bank, Corporation Bank and ICICI Bank, two insurance companies – LIC and ICICI Lombard and a cluster of micro finance institutions. “Three more public sector banks have evinced interest in associating themselves with us,” he said without divulging names.

Answering a query, Mr Gupta said establishing a unique customer identity and creation of a credit profile for the rural customer was the biggest challenge. Each player, be it banks, MFIs, cooperative societies, banking correspondents or credit franchisees – create a disjointed presence in the market place. High cost of independent technology systems, inefficient operating modules and manual field operations tend to increase the customer acquisition and servicing cost.

“FINO helps bridge this gap through its low cost technology network. Our smart card technology backed by core banking platform binds all the players on a common platform,” Mr Gupta claimed.

Biometric devices

To facilitate this service, FINO has installed more than 100 biometric Point-of-Sales (POS) devices. He explained that these hand held devices (which run in an offline mode), stored the fingerprints of the card owner. “The customer swipes the smart card in the Point of Transaction (POT) device and authenticates by registering fingerprints (as bio-password) for operating the account. .”

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