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Digital innovations are continuously reshaping our world. With data becoming the new gold, companies are experimenting and evolving their technologies rapidly. As a result, the entire world of data and connectivity is currently in a state of flux and is increasingly getting complex. There is a growing demand for solutions that can enable ubiquitous frictionless data transfer which is safe and secure. However, there lies a huge gap between existing solutions and the need of the hour. Today, most of the solutions rely heavily on hardware or are dependent on the internet to enable data transfer. This dependency acts as a huge barrier in the path of digital inclusion of all.

Hence, it is imperative to say that the future of connectivity lies with a technology that is orchestrated to cater to everyone and at the same time ensures a secure, swift, & seamless transfer of data over any device, independent of any form of connectivity. One such emerging solution is sending Data-Over-Sound. It has a multitude of complementary capabilities when compared to other connectivity technologies.

One of the biggest advantages of establishing a connection between devices using sound is that the infrastructure needed to facilitate data transfer is already largely in place (devices with a microphone or a speaker). This further leads to the removal of any additional infrastructural cost required to construct or change the existing hardware to enable this data transfer. A simple technological upgrade that can be pushed remotely can enable any device to receive or send data over sound. The interoperability and scalability of this technology make it a perfect solution for bridging all the gaps that exist in other existing solutions. Further to this, it negates the need for being connected to the internet or Bluetooth all the time, making it a solution that can be accessed by anyone and everyone. Especially when it comes to developing nations, not all people have access to smartphones or are digitally literate to execute any complex operations on mobile phones that become a huge hurdle, restricting them from becoming a part of the digital world. Further to this, all the data that is transferred over sound is highly secure and marked by unique codes that are inimitable.

The technology’s position as a pairing-free, one-to-many medium means it mitigates some of the setup and provisioning pain points often associated with traditional alternatives such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, presenting an appealing and versatile solution for frictionless data transmission. Data-Over-Sound technology hence comes as a distinctive solution that acts as a perfect answer to all the hurdles and challenges which lie in the path of the digital revolution.

From its seamless integration into existing hardware and frictionless connections to its ability to work offline in even the most extreme environments, there are myriad potential use cases for data-over-sound. Be it payments, proximity marketing, mobility, retail or logistics, it can be customized and adapted to solve unique problems, specific to industries.

Such assurance of accessibility, cost-effectiveness, convenience, security, and speed make soundwave technology one of the most effective modes of data transfer. All of this makes Data-Over-Sound optimal for all environments and for all challenges.

Mobile money can be a gateway into a huge and largely untouched market, as it offers a dual promise of enabling financial inclusion and an emerging market business opportunity. Mobile money has become very relevant in the Indian market given the fact that internet penetration is still close to 16.5% in rural India and digital wallets don’t make an impact demographically. With the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) getting attention both from the public and the private sector, it’s the right time for mobile money to make an impact.

The technology not only enables payments (which is the perception, the masses have about mobile money) but can also open doors for digital finance and can create an impact on the ready market of more than 250 million Indian population (estimated to have a feature phone). The best technological advancement of UPI is in not having the internet as a barrier to accessing this digital finance world. With mobile money, a microfinance model can be created which is the real sense of financial inclusion on both sides of the balance sheet (deposits/lending).

The microfinance sector has been very prominent in the last decade in India and is growing rapidly, but even that sector needs technological advancement, and mobile money fits it well. The amount of data which mobile money is creating can in turn serve as an engine for credit evaluation of its users and will support the microfinanciers to take informed and intelligent risks with their lending. While many players offer contactless methods of payment mechanism such as NFC and RFID, the new players have developed a technology that require no hardware modification and can be deployed easily with just a software push into the conventional framework while evading the requirement of internet connectivity on the merchant side for a successful transaction. Moreover, it is well in the capability of the new technology to make feature phone holders imbibe in this drive towards digital economy and this is where a contrasting difference from the present scenario can begin to evolve.

The scale of the opportunity is clearly understood; however, firms seeking to tap the mobile money opportunity are faced with a landscape of unknowns. How will the mobile money value chain work in practice? What do we know about consumer behaviour? Mobile money’s underpinning structure, with its combination of financial and telecom industry firms, and a heterogeneous regulatory landscape, is complex and unique. And there are few examples of firms that have achieved scale in other geographies.

This article was written by Amitesh Sinha, Thought Leader

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