I read a recent article on Eko (Read here) and then looked at the blog archive, because I was sure that I wrote something about them, but then found nothing. I could not believe it. I have the biggest respect for Anupam and his partners as I know a little bit of what they do and how difficult it has been. It is not easy to deploy solutions that people criticize and do not take serious, but the team remained focused and have made big progress.Eko is a Delhi-based company that have developed and is busy deploying a banking solution for low income people in India. The functions available on the product is specifically geared towards people at the bottom of the pyramid and is distributed through informal retail outlets. Customers can access the service with cheap phones (making use of USSD when I last checked) and perform the transactions that they typically need.
What I like about Eko is that the approach is geared towards the problem space. Cost of delivery is of course critical and the service is designed to support this. The use of outlets is critical and the business model allows for these important elements of the eco-system to participate profitably. While it is important for entrepreneurs to keep value-creation in mind, I also realised that the team at Eko also have the real interests of their target client in mind, and that is the real reason for their success.