New launches at Eko - FinTech APIs for Bharat

Eko recently held its community Meetup to discuss product updates. Eko offers a range of financial transactions such as domestic money transfers, bill payments, and loan disbursements to individuals who may not have access to traditional banking options. These transactions can be performed by visiting a nearby shopkeeper.

In addition, Eko has made its APIs available for developers to build on top of its ecosystem. During the Meetup, the company announced five updates to its API products. These updates are aimed at providing developers with more tools to create financial instruments using Eko's APIs.

Priyanka and Ajay from the Eko team gave a presentation on the new updates and services provided by the company. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session where attendees could ask any questions they had.

Here's the summary of these 5 updates you need to know

1. AePS backup pipes

Reduces transaction failures

Using Eko's AePS APIs, developers have built use cases such as cash payout with just biometric verification. When you need cash, simply go to your nearby shopkeeper and with just biometric verification, you can get the cash from the shopkeeper.

So what's new? Eko introduced backup pipes. For AePS transactions, there are multiple service providers on the backend which Eko uses. Now Eko will automatically switch to the best service provider depending upon the recent success/failure rates of that service provider. So you do not need to wait for a service provider to come back up. This reduces the transaction failure rates. Something that every developer wishes when dealing with a financial services like Eko.

2. New integration with Yes Bank

Increases DMT limit upto ₹ 2L

Eko has been providing Domestic Money Transfer services since 2008. Eko has been pioneer in enabling money transfer for people who don't have access to bank. Eko enabled them to transfer money via their nearby retail shops. The technology built for this was opened up in the form of APIs in recent years so developers can build their own innovative solutions on top of it. One major concern had been the transaction limit. It was INR 25,000 until now.

So what's new? With the help of new integration with Yes Bank, this limit has been increased to INR 2,00,000. Once the shopkeeper completes the KYC for the customer, they can transfer money upto INR 2,00,000.

More details - https://developers.eko.in/reference/dmt-high-limit-transaction

3. Eko Payout API

Enables fund disbursement via NEFT/IMPS/NEFT

More details - https://developers.eko.in/reference/fund-transfer-overview

4. New Axis Cash Deposit Machine integration

Saves ₹ 20k+ /month for every 100 merchants

Now retail shopkeeper(part of Eko retail shop network) can go to their nearby Axis Cash Deposit Machine and get that money as evalue in their account immediately. This boost the income for the shopkeeper. Earlier, it used to take a lot of time specially on weekends when no banks were opened and the retailer had to wait for the next bank working day to deposit the money and get the balance in account. Not anymore.

5. Offline BBPS

Enables higher commissions on bill payments

BBPS is a service to make utility bill payments such as phone, electricity, water, and many more. Eko enables anyone to pay the bills via their nearby retail shop. When the shopkeeper takes the money from the customer for the bill payment, they'd initiate the request and the bill amount would be credited to the right destination immediately.

So what's new? The above flow is great. And the shopkeeper can still use the same. But now, there's an additional method of BBPS transaction, called offline BBPS transaction. This one is great for the shopkeeper as it pays higher commission to them. In this, the biller will get the payment same day or the next day but not immediately. Which is perfectly fine for many of such transactions, unless they're beyond bill payment deadline and cannot afford a delay of a day. So by choosing offline BBPS mode wherever they can, makes shopkeepers more money, the customer pays the same.

More details - https://developers.eko.in/reference/get-operator-category-list

Eko continues to innovate and improve its services to better serve its customers. The company's commitment to providing financial capabilities to those who may not have access to traditional banking options is evident in the range of services and updates it offers.

Resources

• Join Eko FinTech Developers community on Discord
• Learn Eko APIs
• Check out our open-source project