Eko’s Fundu App Wins Hackathon At UPI Launch Event

Awarded 2nd Runner-Up at the UPI Hackathon

Eko, a leading m obile-based fintech company, today announced, their mobile app Fundu was recognized as 2nd runner up by the National Payments Corporation (NPCI) in the UPI Hackathon. The recognition came at the launch of Unified Payments Interface by NPCI at Hotel Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai. The event was attended by Dr. Raghuram G. Rajan, Governor RBI, Mr. Nandan Nilekani, CMDs of various banks and online commerce merchants.

The Hackathon, which was conducted between 13th February to 20th March, 2016 by NPCI invited developers to participate and showcase the best launch applications using UPI. Around 4000 developers signed up and around 40 were able to submit a working prototype within the hackathon deadline.

Fundu is Eko’s consumer facing app, which rides on top of India Stack & JAM rails of which UPI is an integral part. It is a marketplace for users with electronic money or cash. Unlike most wallets, Eko’s wallet gets funded primarily through cash. Eko also uses a patented 2FA technology, “pinTwin” that gives unmatched ability to deliver secure payments with zero-hop and single-click experience. Integrating with the UPI framework, Fundu enables any customer to act as an ATM for another customer. It matches a user who needs cash with another user who can give cash (or vice-versa) and seamlessly ensure there is an electronic flow of funds to counter the physical flow of cash. This solves a critical cash-in/ cash-out problem in India where ATM penetration is close to a tenth of what is seen in the developed world. With Fundu, we can have a billion ATMs, on-demand.

Mr. Abhishek Sinha, Co-founder & CEO, Eko Financial Services said, “India is leaping ahead when it comes to the payment landscape. This acceleration has been largely fueled by the regulatory focus on creating robust payments infrastructure. The Unified Payments Interface surpasses any other system implemented across the globe, in terms of ease of transferring money. We had the tremendous opportunity to build on it, and it is a matter of great honour for us to be recognized as one of the most innovative applications built on UPI.”

UPI, once fully deployed will enable this service for all customers in all participating banks in India. It will also complement the accounts opened through the Pradham Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. The product is also built upon the strong belief that anywhere, anytime fungibility of cash and electronic forms of money is the foundation on which the future of electronic money exists.

Eko is rapidly expanding its network and currently has more than 5000 agents across 13 states and 80 cities.

Recently Eko has launched World’s First Domestic Money Transfer Service through POS/Card Swipe Devices in partnership with Pine Labs, which has further enhanced its network across the country.