Do you often end up in a situation when you need cash but can never find an ATM? And when you finally do find one, spend the next 10 minutes or so queuing up to withdraw cash? This familiar ritual has plagued us for as far back as our memories serve us. What if we didn’t limit ourselves to ATMs and could look for alternatives for cash withdrawal on just about every street corner or sidewalk? Here enters soCash, a startup which helps you get cash wherever you are, whenever you want.
The Singapore based technology startup, has used a new innovative technology solution to this age old problem – expanding the cash withdrawal network beyond ATMs to any physical retail outlet.
Woman entrepreneur Rekha Hari, co-founder of soCash, says,
We found that cash usage is actually growing globally but banks were finding it costly to expand their ATM network. ATMs are a US $20 billion industry and one of the few areas in banking where technology has not really made any positive impact. We jumped at this opportunity and this is how soCash was born. Our goal is to make cash available around every corner.
The concept is simple. Should there be a need for cash, simply open the soCash app and put in a request for cash and choose from merchants within your vicinity to collect the cash at your convenience. The entire end-to-end process would take much lesser time than the time taken up looking for an ATM and queuing.
The company launched a year back began its operation in October 2015 running a pilot with 200+ users in a small residential community. While still in a development phase, soCash has gotten seed funding of US $100K and is currently working on a next round of US $500k to close by the end of June.
When asked,
In today’s world where cards are used more than cash, how hard it is to bring your model up? As basically you are pushing us back to the old days when cards were not introduced.
Rekha replied,
Cash usage is growing at 6-9% even in developed markets. If you look at the data published by central banks in US, Australia, EU & Singapore (on the cash in circulation), it is hard to validate the ‘cashless’ narrative that is prevalent in the conference circuit; and henceforth, the comment on ‘pushing back to the old days’ is borne out of ignorance.
While billions are being spent on mobile wallets and all sorts of interesting ideas to go cashless, soCash views cash as an integral part of the payments ecosystem which will never fully embrace a 100% cashless society. Rather than fighting the cashless trend, soCash sees itself complementing the trend of cashless by doing away with the physical wallet totally. And, when you need cash, just soCash!
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