Kumari Bank Limited has bagged the coveted mBillionth Award South Asia 2011 for its Kumari Mobile Cash product during the mBillionth South Asia International Summit 2011 held in New Delhi, India on July 23, 2011. The award was won in the m-business & Commerce/Banking Category.
The mBillionth Award 2011, with India’s State union minister of Communications & IT Mr. Sachin Pilot, as the chief guest, was a platform that recognized some of the key innovative applications and services and honored excellence in the arena of mobile communications across South Asia.
Out of a total of more than 200 applications from across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, 21 were selected as winners spread across 11 core categories, with Kumari Bank, the sole winner representing Nepal.
The bank is extremely proud to have won this award for a product that has less than a year of life under its belt. In a very short time span, the product has helped the bank break traditional barriers in providing access to finance to the poor and solve inherently burning issues in the Nepalese banking sector. With 70% of the Nepali population yet to be tapped into formal banking, the bank believes that the promise echoed by the product, in improving access to sustainable financial resources, is real and achievable.

Mr. Radhesh Pant, CEO, Kumari Bank, gratifyingly mentioned that the summit sponsored by internationally acclaimed telecommunications giant Vodafone was deservedly an appropriate platform, not just for the bank to showcase its innovation, but also for the entire country of Nepal to show the world that Nepal also has the capability to be recognized as an incubator for innovative minds. Mr. Pant added that this award has served as an outlet for the bank to scale even greater heights in the days to come.

The first of its kind, Kumari Mobile Cash pioneered the “mobile wallet” concept in Nepal, which allows users to store cash balances in their mobile phones. Users are then able to deposit and withdraw cash from their mobile phones, and use the stored cash value for various purposes such as remittance, bill payments, and airtime recharge, with the push of a few buttons. Currently, customers can avail of this service from anyone of Kumari Bank’s 29 branches, or from its 189 authorized agents dispersed across the country. The service was launched by the bank one year ago, in partnership with Leapfrog Technology, Inc., an American firm based in Boston, MA, USA with a development center in Nepal.