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Risk Management in Emerging Markets

My weblog will focus on risk management and modeling in emerging markets

 

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May 14, 2007

Banking with the Dabbawalas in Mumbai

The famed Mumbai dabbawallas, who ferry food tiffins to nearly 2,00,000 consumers daily in the city, are increasingly getting into promotion of products belonging to some of the most reputed banks and corporate houses in the country.Sometime back, telecom service provider Airtel had tied up with these dabbawallas to promote their pre-paid cards, new connections and bundled handsets. Now Microsoft India had also tied up with them to offer what has been termed as ‘Asliwala PC Offer’ to promote the benefits of having genuine Windows software.

Mumbai's famed dabbawallas will now offer financial services with hot and fresh meals. The dabbawallas will act as business facilitators for distributing mailers and will also collect the filled-up application forms for opening new deposit accounts.
There are around 5,000 dabbawallas in Mumbai feeding a client base of around 1.25 lakh office goers and 50,000 students every day. These dabbawallas will now not only deliver food, but also essential banking services. Their huge client base has made them attractive as delivery points of financial services.The remuneration to the dabbawallas will be based on a flat-fee structure. They will get Rs 2 per form for distribution and Rs 5 per form for collection of the completed application forms. There will be designated dabbawalla officials who will attest the feedback reports before passing them on to the marketing team of the bank.


Posted by sunandoroy at May 14, 2007 12:34 PM