Fintech Spice Money has come on board the government promoted e-commerce platform ONDC to facilitate smaller merchants in rural locations.
The fintech player, through its network of Adhikaris -- small merchants -- delivers various financial services to the rural masses such as cash deposit and withdrawal, insurance premium, bill payments and loans.
By onboarding ONDC, the Adhikaris of Spice Money will act as facilitators to other smaller merchants in their localities who otherwise do not have access to e-commerce platforms to sell their products to a wider segment of buyers, according to a statement.
Spice Money said it is the only rural fintech player as well as one of the four buyer-side apps to be on Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC ) that has gone live for beta testing in Bengaluru Urban District.
ONDC was incorporated in December last year by the commerce ministry aimed at creating a facilitative model to revolutionise digital commerce, giving greater thrust to penetration of retail e-commerce in India.
Spice Money said the current market penetration of e-commerce, in terms of the overall economy, is at 8 per cent. With ONDC, it is expected to grow to 25 per cent in the next two years.
Almost 70 per cent of the country's population lives in rural areas contributing to almost 50 per cent of the GDP. A lion's share in this projected growth of e-commerce will be from this sector, Spice Money said.
"We have been working closely with ONDC, which will solve the problem of discoverability for small businesses who cannot afford to pay substantial commissions or spend for getting better visibility on established e-commerce platforms. With ONDC, e-commerce in India is going to get democratised like never before," Sanjeev Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO of Spice Money, said.