Mumbai: Oxigen Services Pvt. Ltd, today signed a service agreement with Luup, a leading mobile payments company, creating a milestone in the delivery of financial services to Indian communities. The signing ceremony was held during the official visit of a high profile Norwegian delegation to strengthen ties with India, attended by His Excellency, Mr. Trond Giske, Minister of Trade & Industry of Norway.

The tie-up between Oxigen and Luup is the first of its kind in the world, promoting cost-effective and seamless branchless banking, cross-border as well as domestic remittances and airtime top-up through the banking channel – all via a mobile handset. As India is the largest receiver of remittances globally, the new services enabled by Oxigen and Luup will benefit not only the large number of under- or unbanked in India, it will also bring convenience to the millions of migrants working in other countries who support them.

Oxigen will use Luup’s mobile money technology platform and services to run all of Oxigen’s bank-orientated mobile financial services, which will help it grow revenues. The new services will be scalable, secure and user-friendly – to benefit both end-users (banked, unbanked and under-banked) and bank kiosk agents.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Pramod Saxena, Managing Director and Chairman, Oxigen said “Oxigen’s new partnership with Luup is a major step forward in enabling the unbanked and under-banked people in India to receive money from their earning family members overseas. Oxigen is continuing to leverage its retail foot print and payment solution software to bring greater convenience and cost savings to its customers.”

In addition, Luup will add all Oxigen services to its own portfolio of Mobile Branchless Banking and Mobile Remittance Solutions. The aim is to enable Indians living in other countries (starting with the UAE, a hub of Indian migrant workers) to remotely top-up the mobile phones of their families in India.

Through the partnership, Oxigen’s 75,000 strong retail network will become part of an extended local and international payments gateway. With this combined effort Oxigen can expand its business reach overseas with Luup’s international partners, such as retail banks, exchange houses, payroll providers and money transfer organisations.

“The partnership with Oxigen is a key step in expanding Luup’s international payments gateway further,” explained Morten Hofstad, Regional Director, Luup. “We build multi-lateral distribution corridors for seamless, cost-effective and convenient international and domestic remittances. By signing up key partners from banks, exchange houses and payroll processors we create gateways such as the one from the Gulf region to India, bringing vital new solutions to the Indian community.”

This partnership will simplify one of the biggest remittance corridors by offering easy and simple access to mobile money to about 400 million un-banked people across rural India, thus providing a push towards financial inclusion .

India receives more than 50 B $ annually in remittances from Overseas Indians, out of which approx 25B$ is from Gulf countries alone. This New low cost Mobile-based money transfer service will benefit their Indian families who will now be able to receive money into the No Frill Accounts opened at Oxigen SBI Banking Kiosks in their neighborhood.