Valapad, 22 February, 2017: The Valapad E-Village Project was formally inaugurated today by the Valapad Panchayat President, Shri Thomas Master in the presence of Shri B.N. Raveendra Babu, Executive Director, Manappuram Finance, and Dr. Anitha Shankar, Principal, SN College Nattika, at a function held at the Panchayat Office.
 
The project aims to spread digital financial literacy in shops and household in the Valapad village area. Initiated by Manappuram Finance Ltd. and the Valapad Panchayat, the project will involve a dedicated team comprising employees of the company, ward members and a batch of volunteer students from SN College, Nattika, fanning out into all the wards of the Panchayat with the aim of educating people in the use of various online means of payment.
 
Field level training will be imparted to every household of Valappad panchyat. Manappuram Finance Ltd. has trained the volunteer students of S N College and the members of Valapad Panchyat. In turn, these students, along with officials of the company, will conduct field meeting to educate at least one member per household of Valapad Panchyat and impart awareness about digital financial literacy. Every households of the panchyat would be taught the different platforms of making cashless transactions thereby transforming Valapad into a 100% digitally literate village in India. In the era of less use of cash along with growing use of digital modes of payment, people at large would lose out if they lack the knowledge to transact without cash.
 
Manappuram Finance Ltd. is headquartered in Valapad. This coastal village in the Thrissur District has an area of 16.33 sqkms. The total population is 35,237 out of which 19,029 are females & 16,208 are males. 40% of the population (8852 households) belongs to the BPL category. 86.5% of the total population are literate and only 13.5% are illiterate as per 2011 census.

Manappuram Finance Ltd. was honoured with the prestigious “Best NBFC for Gold Business” Award by the India Bullion and Jewellers Association, at the 4th India Bullion and Jewellery Awards function held at the Sahara Star hotel in Mumbai on March 16, 2017.
 
The India Bullion and Jewellers Association Ltd. (IBJA) was established in the year 1919 and is the leading apex body of India today, representing the bullion and jewellery industry.  This year, as part of its 98th Foundation Year celebrations, IBJA had held its 4th India International Bullion Summit and 4th India Bullion and Jewellery Awards in Mumbai on March 16, 2017.
 
The award was accepted on behalf of the company by Mr. Ranjan Sreedharan, General Manager, Corporate Communications. 

Valapad village in the Thrissur District of Kerala was officially declared as a fully e-literate village on March 22, 2017 at a function held in Valapad. The declaration was made by Shri E.K. Thomas, President of the Valapad Panchayat, and it follows the successful ground level implementation of “Project E-Valapad” initiated by Manappuram Finance Ltd. in partnership with the Panchayat.
 
Project E-Valapad aimed at spreading digital financial literacy in shops and household in the Valapad village area. For this purpose, a dedicated team consisting of employees of the company, ward members and a batch of trained volunteer students from the nearby S.N. College Nattika fanned out to all the wards. They went door-to-door imparting training to all the households in the use of various online means of payments and other financial transactions. Their mission was to ensure that at least one member of each household would become e-literate in terms of being conversant with the different platforms of making cashless transactions. Over a period of 5 days, the volunteers managed to cover 8,742 households out of a total of 9,809 households.
 
With the successful conclusion of the project, Valapad can now lay claim to the status of a fully digitally literate village. The village has an area of 16.33 sq. km with a population of about 35,000, a literacy rate of 86.5%, and with the BPL population at 40% (2011 census).
 
Manappuram Finance Ltd., a leading NBFC rooted in Valapad, is committed to spreading digital financial literacy among communities it is engaged with. Recently, the company’s officials had experienced first-hand some of the ground level difficulties faced by the local people in transitioning to cashless mode of transactions. Manappuram’s MD & CEO, Shri V.P. Nandakumar, conceived Project E-Valapad and directed a team within the company to approach Valapad Panchayat for implementation.

Manappuram Finance Ltd. has launched its co-branded prepaid money card in a tie up with YES BANK, India’s 5th largest private sector Bank. The Manappuram YES BANK Money Card can be pre-loaded up to a maximum amount of Rs.50,000/- and then used to withdraw money from all ATM’s. As the card works on the popular MasterCard and RuPay networks, it can also be used for online transactions and at merchant establishments with Point of Sales (PoS) terminals. YES BANK will employ its state-of-the-art Digital Banking and technology platforms to power the Mannapuram YES BANK Money Card and also integrate with its API Banking system to ensure seamless payments, reconciliation and integration at the backend.

Speaking at the function held in Valapad in this connection, the MD & CEO of Manappuram Finance Ltd., Mr. V.P. Nandakumar said, “We recognise that the future is cashless and therefore we are committed to ease the transition for our customers by offering them a choice of convenient alternatives to cash. We are pleased to launch our prepaid money card in partnership with a bank of the stature of YES BANK.”

Mr.Ritesh Pai, Senior President & Country Head, Digital Banking , of YES BANK, said ”YES BANK believes in the power of Banking-as-a-Service to revolutionise the Digital Banking and Payments ecosystem in India, and have adopted the Alliances, Relationships and Technology (ART) approach to Banking. In line this with ethos, we are glad to partner with Mannapuram Finance to further the mission of a less-cash economy and promote digital payments in the country.”

Manappuram Finance Ltd. will issue the prepaid card to its entire base of 20 lakh live customers and link their existing gold loan accounts to the card. This will enable its customers to withdraw money from ATMs across India. Moreover, customers can also withdraw money from any of the 3,300 branches of Manappuram Finance Ltd., a feature unique to this card. The card can be reloaded directly at all Manappuram Branches. The card can also be purchased by non-customers by furnishing their mobile number and a KYC document as prescribed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

MaKash eWallet: During the function, Manappuram Finance Ltd. also launched its branded eWallet under the name, “MaKash”. The company had recently received a Pre Paid Payment Instrument License from RBI which authorised the company to operate a semi-closed payment instrument and eWallets. The technology partner for MaKash is Teknospire, a Bangalore based software company.

Tech focus: Manappuram Finance Ltd. has, in recent years, focused on leveraging technology to make life easy for its customers through various tech enabled offerings.  It was the first to launch Online Gold Loan in 2015 which allows customers to avail gold loans from anywhere, anytime by use of any web-enabled device. Simutaneously, the company had also activated digital channels for repayment of gold loans such as internet banking, debit cards, eWallets etc. With the launch of its money card and the “MaKash” eWallet, Manappuram Finance Ltd. will take one more important step in the transition towards cashless environment.

Recently, in March 2017, the company had initiated “Project e-Valapad” in partnership with the Valapad Panchayat, under which training in online financial transactions through smartphones was imparted to over 9,000 households in Valapad village in Thrissur district, after which the village was officially declared as a fully e-literate village.

Photo: Mr. V.P. Nandakumar, MD & CEO, Manappuram Finance Ltd. (1st from right) and Mr. Ritesh Pai, Senior President & Country Head, Digital Banking , of YES BANK (2nd from right), launch the Manappuram YES BANK Prepaid Money Card at a function held on Saturday April 15, 2017 at Manappuram’s HO in Valapad, Thrissur.

V.P. Nandakumar elected as Chairperson of Lions Clubs International Multiple District

Mr. V.P. Nandakumar, MD & CEO of Manappuram Finance Ltd., was unanimously elected as the Chairperson of Lions Clubs International’s Multiple District 318.

The elections were held as part of the 8th Annual Multiple District Convention of the Club held at the Bolghatty Palace in Kochi on May 14, 2017.  Multiple District 318 brings together nearly 550 Lions clubs with over 20,000 members belonging to the state of Kerala.

Mr. V.P. Nandakumar currently holds the office of Governor of District 318D which includes Lions Clubs in the districts of Thrissur, Palakkad and Malappuram. In July 2016, Mr. Nandakumar was the recipient of the Lions Ambassador of Good Will award, which is the highest international honour bestowed by the Club.

Lions Clubs International is the largest service organisation in the world that brings together people around the world under the motto of “we serve”. Founded in Chicago in 1917, the Club is now celebrating 100 years of existence.

Mr. Nandakumar is a national Managing Committee member of FICCI and Assocham and the immediate past Chairman of CII’s Kerala State Council.  

Shri Amitabh Kant IAS, CEO of NITI Aayog, delivers the Memorial Lecture

The eighth V.C. Padmanabhan Memorial Awards for Excellence for 2017 were conferred on the distinguished awardees at a function held on June 15th, 2017 at the Lulu International Convention Centre, Thrissur.

Prominent winners for the year included the former Union cabinet minister and member of parliament, Dr. Shashi Tharoor, NITI Aayog CEO Shri. Amitabh Kant IAS, eminent playback singer Padma Shri K.S. Chithra, and the wildlife conservationist, Shri Vava Suresh.

The awards were given away by Prof. P.J. Kurien, Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and it carried a cash prize of Rs.2 lakhs and a plaque. Mr. V.P. Nandakumar, MD & CEO, Manappuram Finance Ltd., welcomed the gathering and delivered the presidential address.

The V.C. Padmanabhan Memorial Awards were instituted in the year 2010 to commemorate the illustrious founder of the Manappuram Group. They are presented every year to eminent personalities who have made significant contributions in the five categories of Arts and Literature, Civil Servant achieving Excellence in Public Administration, Public Representative achieving
Excellence in Good Governance, Business Excellence leading to development of Society at large and Ecology and Environment Conservation.

The following is the list of Awardees for the year 2017:

The awards function was followed by the 15th V.C. Padmanabhan Memorial Annual Lecture delivered by Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NIti Aayog, on the topic “Transforming India.” Watch Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It-SE--yvQ8&t=4785s

Shri Kant spoke about the need to step up India’s economic growth rate in order to emerge as a developed country in the shortest time. He pointed out that wealth creation is primarily a function of the private sector and therefore the need of the hour is to make it easy for the private sector to function effectively. However, the Indian experience historically has been that we have made India a complicated, complex and difficult country for the private sector to do business. Accordingly, the focus of the government of India now is to improve the ease of doing business in the country and over the last three years, a lot has been done in this regard. The introduction of GST, the passing of the bankruptcy law, the scrapping of over 11,000 outdated laws, and the practice of ranking states on the basis of ease of doing business are all recent measures to improve the climate for private sector activity in India, he said.

Earlier, Shri Amitabh Kant was introduced by Shri B.N. Raveendra Babu, Executive Director, Manappuram Finance Ltd. Shri Sooraj Nandan, Senior Vice President of the company, delivered the vote of thanks.

Conference of Banks and Financial Institutions lending to Manappuram Finance Limited under the Multiple Banking Arrangement.