Cash and cell phone

 India has millions of laborers who work from home and wish to send money to their families to support their daily chores. Only 10 percent of villages have a bank branch in India— but almost everybody has a cell phone. EKO Financial Services figured out a clever and useful method for mobile delivery of small amounts of cash. Every town has a merchant that has a credit or micro lending relationship with its customers. EKO leveraged these relationships by making the merchant the local “branch,” accepting and disbursing cash payments through the EKO system. As of 2011, the company had 150,000 customers and worked with 1,500 merchants.