India Stack

In September 2010, India set out on an arduous journey. A journey to provide every one of its billion plus residents with a unique identification number. A journey that would prove to be the beginning of a FinTech revolution for the country.

INDIA STACK

What is India Stack?

In simple terms, India Stack is:

• A paperless and cashless service delivery system.
• The India Stack is a set of APIs that allow governments and private companies to deploy cashless and paperless technology products.
• The stack is a new technology paradigm that is scalable to handle massive data inflows, and is poised to enable entrepreneurs, citizens and governments to interact with each other transparently.
• It is an open system to electronically verify businesses, people and services.
• It gives the data to the concerned individual and lets him decide who he can share the data with. The smartphone will be the delivery platform for services such as digital payments, identification and digital lockers.
• It is the largest application programming interface (API) on the planet.
• Poised to change the lives of 1.1 billion Indians.
• On December 1st 2016, in a much-awaited press conference, Mukesh Ambani, CMD of Reliance Industries, announced that Reliance Jio had crossed 50 million subscribers – a feat it had achieved in a mere 83 days. This made Jio the world’s fastest growing tech company surpassing the likes of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Skype. This astonishing achievement was made possible by the strategy of rolling out e-KYC across all outlets in India, allowing SIM activation in under 5 minutes. 95% of activations were done using e-KYC resulting at a staggering average rate of addition of 6 Lakh subscribers per day.
• It gives data to the concerned individual and lets him decide whom he can share data with. The smartphone will be the delivery platforms for services such as DIGITAL PAYMENTS,IDENTIFICATION AND LOCKERS.

Here are the 5 tenets of India Stack and the Startups leveraging it

• Paperless identification
  • Aadhaar’s 12-digit unique identification number, floated by the UIDAI in 2009, has more than one billion Indians registered who have became the basis for the India Stack.
  • This system of identification and delivery of services is already being used by the startup world.
  • Aadhaar to deliver banking services to citizens.

• Paperless payments
  • mobile payments through the smartphone. This can become India Stack’s signature delivery mechanism to make India a digital cash economy.
  • Also, Nowdays the short term online loan is being provided by the companies in just a click without paper work through your smartphones
  • Digital payments platform Paytm has announced partnership with major NHAI toll concessionaries like Reliance Infra, Sadhbav, IRB, MEP, L&T and GMR to enable cashless payments at all state, national and city toll plazas.

• Paperless documents
  • Although digitisation is growing, India consumes the largest amount of paper.
  • the per-capita consumption of paper is 9kg and is all set to double by 2020 because of the growth of the education industry.
  • But with smartphone prices dropping, at least financial services and the healthcare industry can move to a paperless scenario in major cities with the help of India Stack.
  • The Stack’s APIs allow startups to bring solutions that can make documents go digital. Like for example taking online loans can help in saving the all paper documentation and verifications.

• E-KYC
  • Abbreviated as electronic Know Your Customer
  • A key challenge for the customers while opening bank accounts is providing address proof, identity proof and physical copies of documents.
  • E-KYC simplifies the customer experience for the Aadhaar-registered individuals to open bank accounts.

• Digital signature
  • This would be the last mile to cross, and can be made simple between two or more parties executing contracts over the mobile.
  • Today, most HR offers are online documents that contain digital signatures.

How it affects India?

• Citizens

Brings millions of Indians into the formal economy by reducing friction.

• Software ecosystem

Fosters innovation to build products for financial Inclusion, healthcare & educational services at scale.

• Government

Brings a paradigm shift in the way government services are delivered in a transparent, accountable and leakage free model

How Fibe uses India Stack for enabling E-KYC & Faster loan disbursement.

• Fibe provides short term cash to salaried individuals without any paperwork or documentation, thus following the digitized route.
• The transfer of money into an individual’s bank account is a seamless process without any physical layer involved.
• The paperless process not only helps in management of time and resources but also avoids redundancy.
• Because of digitization, the process becomes smoother, as opposed to the traditional banking systems that turn out to be cumbersome and time-taking.