Interview with Mani Mamallan Founder & MD, EPS
Please apprise our readers about your company ?
Founded in 2011, by veterans with over 150 years of experience in the banking, technology and retail payments industry in India, Electronic Payment and Services (P) Ltd was launched and it went on to become a leading retail banking technology and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) services provider. EPS is headquartered in Mumbai, and caters to the demand for efficient, secure and technology driven products and services for the banking industry and India’s rapidly growing ATM network.
The organisation’s vision is to be the leading provider of technology solutions in the Retail Banking & Payments System with a mission to be a leading provider of banking terminals (ATM) by providing, cost effective banking and transaction related services and solutions; and to establish a dependable electronic payment network.
In 2016, EPS acquired 100% stakeEPS acquired 100% stakein CISB ATM Services Pvt. Ltd. and in March 2016 was renamed as EPS ATM Services Private Limited.
EPS has built a firm reputation on delivering results, reliability and dependability, having successfully deployed over 6,000 ATMs for 26public, regional rural and co-operative banks across 28 states in India, in support of the Ministry of Finance (Govt. of India) led Jan Dhan mission under PMJDY to drive ‘Financial Inclusion’.
What services you are Offering ?
EPS is highly adept at end-to-end Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Operations and Outsourcing Services, and offers a holistic range of ATM Managed Services enabling banks to concentrate on core banking functions. Our state-of-the-art Managed Services Centre uses industry best practices, proven processes, advanced tools and skilled resources that operates24x7x365 days, located in our secure and monitored facility in Mumbai, India.
EPS provides ATM deployment services through our ATM Infrastructure Management (AIM) Division, operating out of our state-of-the-art facility in Mumbai, India. The teams at EPS possess a holistic range of proven skills, industry best practices and sound knowledge of systems integration required for completion of projects within defined timelines. Training and recruitment programs are also conducted to cater our client’s requirement to manage various projects.
In addition to ATM services, EPS also provides a best-in-class PCI-DSS certified Transaction Switching Solution, which drives all industry standard front-end payment devices. This Solution caters to the demanding security requirements, which is highly reliable and fully EMV Compliant with a high-performance EFT system available in high-volume implementations. It supports rapid integration with existing and new payment channels and is highly scalable thus making it convenient to fraud detection systems and protecting data management/inflight transactions. It supports all major ATMs, multiple POS devices, mobile payments and Internet payments channels and can drive all industry standard front-end payment devices.
In the fast-moving digital payment domain, EPS intends to be an end-to-end Technology Solutions Provider for banks.
What is your USP and what differentiates you from your competitors ?
EPS was launched to cater to mostly semi-urban and rural markets in India where there was a huge gap between the bank and the beneficiary. According to the DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer), a social benefit is explained as the offering to the unbanked / underbanked, where money is transferred by respective government departments through ATMs, without any middleman or broker for real time credit, saving loopholes to the actual beneficiary.
Moving away from the existing business model unlike competitors, thinking innovatively and proposing a win- win business model to customer, leveraged EPS’s breakthrough into innovation space.This enabled EPS to come out with first of its kind ATM transaction based model known as Disruptive Business Model (Pay per use) which is unique to the world, that led to higher ATM up time for banks and higher revenue streams. Our attempt was successfully backed by Ministry of Finance, a mission led under Financial Inclusion for deployment of ATMs in urban, semi urban and rural areas (a population less than 2000) and Direct Benefit Transfer scheme of Government of India.
The Model came into play for the First time in India, which was not tried anywhere globally, whereas rest of the Players/ competitors had different models like fixed Monthly rentals for ATM outsourced Services.
EPS revenue model is a Win-Win for customers as well as the company as more ATM uptime results in more availability for banks and its customers and results in better Revenues, as different from competitors.
Building Customer Relationship plays an important role in your class of business. What are your efforts in this regard ?
For EPS, our primary customers are banks for whom we offer our wide range of services and the company was launched to address the demand for efficient, secure and technology driven products and services for the banking industry. The disruptive business model has been adopted by various PSU banks in India, since inception in 2011 and is expected to scale large volumes with private banks. This is a scalable approach as per the plan of individual banks, without much addition to their existing servers/ electronic fund transfer switch, and no additional cost to banks, hence making it seamless.
This brought in a lot many challenges, wherein deployment of ATM at remote and rural areas faced electricity and connectivity issues. This drove EPS to install extra solar powered systems for ATMs to stay up and running thus enabling banks to reach to the mass. Major cash depletion in ATMs in rural pockets were observed, wherein EPS overcame this challenge by enabling Cash Replenishment Agencies in these areas with distance of 150 kms from Cash pick up points.ATM/ cash monitoring was yet another challenge which was solved by the launch of Centralised ATM Managed Services Centre on 24X7X365 basis.
The team of specialists and professionals driving EPS have pioneered various initiatives in the ATM & Payments industry in India i.e. 1st ATM installed in India for HSBC in 1987, 1st shared ATM network ‘Swadhan’ by India Switch Company in 1997, 1st of its kind transaction based ATM business model for Brown Label ATMs in India, deployed the 1st live ATM in Mumbai for the Ministry of Finance Project in July 2012 etc.
EPS core values include their ability to understand, deliver and determine what their clients need as trust and respect are an integral part of their teamwork. EPS believe in developing strong relationships through transparency and fairness in their dealings with clients, and are committed to a high standard of integrity.
What is your focus on Research and Development as this may have significant effect in expansion of your business ?
Going by Innovation, Technology and Performance, the team at EPS delves into Research & Development of various in-house products and services, making it the backbone of EPS’ operations. Being a contributor in the R&D space, EPS forays into either develop products to serve the local market or help the company deliver new innovative generation of products and services faster to the markets across the BFSI sector.
EPS has also ventured into in-house R&D to enable ATM Electronic Journal(EJ) pulling services with superior transaction uptime and successfully developed a robust EJ software solution EPSmartX for Windows OS based ATMs.
The range of simultaneous R&D projects taken into consideration are e-surveillance services, cash replenishment services, Digital Banking services, reconciliation support and security services, thus making EPS a Technology Solutions Provider for all banks.
Any other development you would like to share.
Among several accolades and achievements received, the most recent was when EPS was honoured as “Best ATM Managed Service Provider” in the Smart Money Awards in March 2017. This was preceded by our Founder, Mr. Mani Mamallan being featured among Top 35 FinTech Entrepreneurs by The Smart CEO Magazine in February 2017.
Also last year, EPS received an international award as the Fastest Growing Indian Company Excellence Award for Outstanding Achievements on Global Business Opportunities at the 8th International Achievers Summit 2016 in Thailand. This acclaimed global appreciation was lauded across industry followed by EPS ranking 10th among the 13 Biggest funded Start-ups of India by Your Story magazine in July 2016.
EPS has been earlier recognised by some major publications like Silicon India, Consultant Review, ERP insights, CEO magazine etc, to name a few. The company has also received awards from the global ATM industry body, ATMIA, Hughes Communications etc. EPS has bagged industry recognitions as ‘India’s Most Trusted Brand Award’ by IBC InfoMedia, ‘Best ATM Managed Services Provider’ at the Payment & Cards Summit, and ‘Best ATM Service Provider’ at the 3rd Annual Financial Inclusion & Payments Summit and many more.
About Mr. Mani Mamallan
Founder, Chairman & Managing Director of Electronic Payment and Services (P) Ltd., is well known for his in-depth knowledge, innovation and ingenuity in the retail technology banking space, including the microfinance domain. This year, Mani has been honoured as one among the Top 35 FinTech Entrepreneurs 2017 by The Smart CEO magazine. In conjunction, he is the first Indian to be nominated as an International ATM Industry Champion in April 2016 by the global ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) with over 7500 members in 65 countries.
With over three decades of experience in Banking, Organization Development, Payment Systems and ATM Outsourcing & Shared Networks, Mani is known as The Architect behind Indian ATM Systems and was honored with the Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 award by Silicon India in December 2015.
