Microfinance has gotten a lot of attention these days, with the awarding of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank in Bangladesh for their work extending credit to the poorest of the poor. According to some estimates, the potential market for these services is 500 million people - the rural poor who have no access to banking services. India's Financial Information Network and Operations, or FINO, aims to tap this market, using smart cards, portable readers and an electronic system that enrolls and trans-acts business in places without bank branches and few network connections. FINO's Universal Remote Transaction System uses 32-kilobyte Java-based smart cards to store fingerprints along with customer account and transaction details.
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