Ashok Kumar Goel: Technology

It was the vision of empowering the unbanked and underbanked with an instrument, which puts them in the social and financial mainstream that encouraged Ashok Kumar Goel to diversify from his manufacturing business. He resolved to do away with the agony of long queues for money order or paying their utility bills, suffered by the common man. This resulted in the creation of ItzCash – a solution that uses ICTs to provide singlewindow service from an outlet run by an entrepreneur. Whether it is money transfer, booking a rail ticket or payment of property tax – all can be done in a jiffy without any queues or involvement of middlemen. ItzCash Card can be preloaded and used seamlessly across all ATMs, POS terminals and online – thus killing cash and fears related with carrying it. In one stroke, he provided easy access to the user and at the same time created employment opportunities for millions. There are over 300,000 outlets across 2,250 towns and cities providing these services recording over 10 million transactions per month.