The U.S. fintech company HUMBL is entering the Indian market through a strategic partnership with Digital India Payments Limited (DIPL). DIPL currently provides payment processing services at more than 30,000 locations in India, and at additional locations in Nepal, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.
HUMBL, meanwhile, is a mobile payments specialist. The company has developed the HUMBL Mobile App, which allows users to send money to (and receive money from) merchants and other individuals. It also maintains HUMBL Hubs, which are physical agent locations that provide customers with a variety of walk-in financial services, including currency exchanges, cash withdrawals, lending, and bill payments.
The new strategic partnership will make those services available across DIPL’s extensive network of physical locations. Customers will be able to consult with trained DIPL agents, or take advantage of HUMBL’s complementary Point-of-Sale Tablet products.
“Our younger customers don’t want to visit multiple service branches to wait in long lines, pay expensive fees and highly variable rates,” said DIPL Managing Director Hari Prasath. “HUMBL gives them mobile financial services faster, cheaper and in nearby locations.”
The two organizations are hoping that the partnership will make financial services more accessible and raise financial inclusion in the region. To that end, the HUMBL Hubs will support India’s “Smart Grid” program, which uses biometrics like face or fingerprint recognition to facilitate the distribution of financial and government services.
“The total cost of sending and exchanging money into many emerging markets still hovers around 10-20 percent, with short-term loan rates in excess of 30 percent, for people who can afford it the least,” noted HUMBL CEO Brian Foote. “HUMBL is working to cut those costs in half while getting more people into the India tax base.”
HUMBL is not the only company working to boost financial inclusion in India. Mastercard recently partnered with the Federal Bank to bring its Mastercard Identity Check platform to the country, while NEC has been working with CSC e-Governance Services India to bring financial services to people in rural areas. As of August, the Aadhaar-enabled Payment System had already been used to clear 200 million financial transactions.
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