About Zero Mass Foundation

ZERO Microfinance and Savings Support Foundation (ZERO MASS Foundation/ZMF) has been a pioneer in the field of Financial Inclusion space as a Business Correspondent (BC) to 25 Banks in India including the State Bank of India (SBI). ZMF helps banks increase their outreach in 'Rural Unbanked India' through its Customer Service Points (CSPs) working as village branches using the Branchless Banking technology. A.Little.World Pvt. Ltd. (ALW) is the technology provider for all the banks who have engaged ZMF as a BC. ALW provides the technology as a service to Banks under its brand “ZERO”.

ZMF creates the last mile operations network in villages, under pre-defined service agreements with Banks and front-ends the delivery of full-featured transactional services on behalf of Banks for Financial Inclusion on the ground. ZMF, a Section 25 Company closely affiliated to ALW provides field operations for the ZERO platform. ZMF manages the field force, account creation, appointment of Customer Service Points (CSPs), management of cash and other logistics at the last mile. ZMF in turn collaborates with strongly placed local organisations, district and state administration to ensure smooth deployment and operations.

As per a typical agreement between ZMF and a bank, ZMF's scope of services include:

• Enrolment of customers for no-frills zero-balance savings accounts and other account types that may be specified by the Bank.
• Enrolling, training and equipping of Customer Service Points (CSPs) in villages to provide various kinds of transaction services including but not limited to cash deposit, cash withdrawal, transfer of money, payment of utility bills, disbursal of loans, collection of loan instalments, and cashless payments at local and remote merchant establishments.
• Engaging the CSPs to provide enrolment services for opening no-frills account
• Engaging the CSPs to provide various kinds of transaction services including but not limited to cash deposit, cash withdrawal, transfer of money, payment of utility bills, and disbursal of loans and collection of loan installments.
• 3rd party cash collection
• Cashless payments at local and remote merchant establishments.
• Management of cash
• Lending activities on behalf of the Bank (as an MFI) Other service as may be advised by the Bank in writing to ZMF, and which ZMF agrees to perform

The ZERO platform is based on new generation mobile phones and Fingerprint authentication which converts new generation low-cost NFC (Near Field Communication) mobile phones with large storage capacities as a secure, self-sufficient bank branch, with biometrics based customer ID, for customer enrollments for no-frills accounts and all types of transactions in the village with the local Customer Service Point operator acting as a Teller. Existing Mobile communications networks are used for all transaction uploads, downloads and application updates. The platform ensures that Banking facility is provided to the right people at the right time and the right amount of money is transacted. The CSPs are equipped with a mobile phone and a Fingerprint Scanner cum Receipt Printer to carry out Banking and Payment transactions (i.e. Cash Deposit, Cash Withdrawal, Account to Account Transfer, Balance Enquiry, Mini Statements, etc.) using both online connectivity to Banks and in an offline mode (with daily batch settlements). The main features of the ZERO platform are:

• Mobile phone as core Bank branch
• Smart cards not needed for biometric authentication in local service area
• Mobile phone used for opening accounts on-the-spot by local CSP
• Voice prompts during enrolment and transactions
• Printout of each transaction

The platform employs biometrics based ID, RFID smart cards, and NFC (Near Field Communication) mobile phones as acceptance and enabling devices (with merchants, field forces of MFIs and as cashless ATMs).

The ZERO platform can be easily deployed for the following services:

• Biometric Identity
• Cash deposit
• Cash withdrawals
• Money transfer
• NREGA / Pensions
• Micro Credit
• Micro Insurance
• Cashless Payment
• Utility Payments
• SHG Utilities like Disbursals, Repayment and Record of Attendance

As evident from the platform's applications, ZERO MASS Foundation (ZMF) also works closely with Government Departments to ensure that the exact amounts of Government benefits reach in time to the rightful beneficiaries for Government programmes like NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), Social Security Pensions (SSP), Scholarships, Housing Grants, etc. Bank accounts are opened for all such Government beneficiaries by ZMF.

ZMF also helps Government departments to automate processes such as Attendance and Job Demand for NREGA using the beneficiary fingerprint authentication and by ascertaining the GPS (Global Positioning System) co-ordinates of the work sites.

ZERO Platform has been built as a cost effective method for Banks to extend all their products and services such as Savings, Loans, Recurring Deposits, etc., to customers. The platform is also built as an easy to use option of illiterate and semi-literate population in villages with features like Graphical User Interface and Voice Guidance.

ALW and ZMF have done many innovations to bring down cost of operations for banks as well as for rapid scale up of operations. Few examples of such innovations are:

A. ZERO platform can be used by customers without using expensive Smartcards

B. The CSP in a village can enroll customers using the same mobile device that is used for carrying out transactions with an easy to use graphical interface

C. Use of both online and offline methods of transactions

ZMF has expanded its operations in 19 states with more than 8,000 CSPs covering more than 16,000 villages. About 4 million customers have been enrolled under the Financial Inclusion programme. Multiple State Governments are disbursing their NREGA wages and Social Security Pensions using the ZERO system at the CSPs of ZMF. ZMF actively works towards improving commercial viability of CSPs by offering multiple products and services through the ZERO platform.

A major hurdle in scaling up of the operations is to find the right business model for commercial viability of all stakeholders in the ecosystem, e.g. Customer Service Point (CSP) operators, Banks and ZMF. ZMF is constantly working with all the partner institutions to arrive at the right commercial models in all specific geographies of India.