Shashank Joshi, a renowned entrepreneur in India, and BlocPal International have announced their partnership to form a new India based fintech company, mBnk. The company will initially focus on enabling premium retailer locations in rural and semi-urban areas across the country to provide essential financial and banking services to their communities.
Of a total population of 1.4 billion people in India, 900 million live in rural or semi-urban areas. The country persistently remains a cash economy with a huge addressable market of 840 million people either unbanked or underbanked. Access to banking services in India continues to be challenging with supply of only 22 ATMs per 100,000 adults in India. By comparison, the United States has 174 ATMs per 100,000 adults, Russia has 161, Brazil has 105, and China has 97.
mBnk plans to leapfrog this critical problem by leveraging Shashank and his team’s industry success and longstanding relationships together with BlocPal’s digital transaction platform. The mBnk digital retail solution will deliver a financial marketplace that enables retailers to offer their customers “mini-banking” financial services including the ability to deposit and withdraw cash, execute domestic money transfers, purchase prepaid credit cards, buy air-time and pay for utilities. mBnk will continue to enhance services, providing access to more sophisticated banking and financial services for the marketplace.
As the retailer network grows, mBnk will further extend financial services directly to citizens of India and their family and friends abroad with a consumer digital wallet application, creating a more connected physical retailer and consumer experience. Consumers will have instant access to financial services through their own smartphone devices.
Shashank Joshi, founder and former CEO of Money on Mobile, is one of Mumbai’s most prestigious serial entrepreneurs. He brings to mBnk his vast experience in building fintech businesses as well as his strong relationships with physical merchant networks, banks, and strategic service providers in India. When Shashank resigned from Money on Mobile in 2016, the company achieved a subscriber base of 153 million and over 300,000 retail partners.
Commenting on the development, Shashank Joshi, said, “Our goal is to build a network of retailer partnerships across the rural population of India where essential financial services are within a 5 km reach to every community. This project is not only an amazing entrepreneurial challenge, but represents, for me, a chance to truly improve the lives of millions of deserving people across the country. I am thrilled to be undertaking this challenge with the help of BlocPal and their advanced digital platform.”
BlocPal is a major stakeholder in mBnk, providing technology, investment capital and strategic management. The retailer and consumer digital wallet solutions for mBnk use BlocPal’s scalable digital wallet and blockchain platform which is deployed today for similar enterprise projects in Mexico and First Nations in Canada. The mBnk solution also includes custom features and 3rd party service integrations driven by Shashank’s requirements and vision.
“We have found a tremendous partner in Shashank and his team to financially empower the underserved population in India. We believe India is one of the biggest market opportunities for financial services globally,” explained Nick Mellios, founder and CEO of BlocPal.
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