Comments
Buoyed by the increasing popularity of pre-paid consumer cards, the Essel Group’s financial services arm, ItzCash Card Limited is eyeing about 60 per cent growth in the business in the country during 2014-15.
The company is planning two more variants of the pre-paid cash cards exclusively for travel and an add-on card for the family member of the first holder.
“We see good potential in the pre-paid cash card business. Annually we have been growing at about 30 per cent rate but this year we expect about 60 per cent growth for 2014-15,” said Mudit Bhatnagar, Vice-President & Head, Marketing and Corporate Communications.
The growth will come from corporate cash-in business and consumer cards. The company is in discussions with corporate groups for tie-up as a payment option for their respective customers. In a cash card, the user recharges the card with a required amount and uses it at various establishments including the ATMs to withdraw the money. This reduces the usage of cash without the involvement of banks.
About Rs 450 crore worth of transactions take place through ItzCash on monthly basis with daily turnover of about Rs 15 crore with average 300,000 transactions per day. However, about 50 per cent of the business comes from the retailer prepaid cards, while 12-15 per cent business comes from the remittances made by the migrant workers.
The company aims to penetrate further in the industrial areas, where there is large number of migrant workers and who do not have access or limited access to formal banking. Nationally, ItzCash has 50,000 franchisees, of which 2000 are in Gujarat. The company plans to open at least 1500 more franchisees in Gujarat alone.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.