New Delhi, July 2 -- Deep-tech startup ToneTag on Thursday launched eKosha, a voice-enabled AI platform that allows banks to offer virtual banking services to small businesses, as lenders increasingly look to lower servicing costs while expanding their reach among India's 80 million micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
The Bengaluru-based company said eKosha enables merchants to access banking services through natural voice conversations in regional languages, allowing them to check loan eligibility, explore government schemes, access business insights and receive personalised financial services without visiting a branch.
The platform, unveiled in Bengaluru in the presence of ToneTag founder and chief executive Kumar Abhishek and Aarin Capital chairman T.V. Mohandas Pai, is aimed at helping banks deepen engagement with merchants while reducing the cost of servicing them.
According to the company, banks deploying eKosha could reduce merchant servicing costs by up to 60%, double cross-selling opportunities per merchant and lower merchant churn to 6-9% from the current 15-20%. Improved retention could also reduce merchant acquisition costs over time, it said.
"The merchant counter has always been at the centre of India's commerce. With eKosha, we are reimagining it as the centre of merchant banking," said Kumar Abhishek, founder and chief executive of ToneTag.
"For the first time, banks have a dedicated, always-on engagement channel embedded at the point where merchants conduct business every day, enabling access to banking services through simple, natural conversations in their own language," he added.
Unlike conventional AI assistants that rely heavily on cloud connectivity, eKosha performs AI inference locally using ToneTag's proprietary analogue Edge AI architecture. The company said this enables real-time voice interactions even in areas with unreliable internet connectivity while consuming significantly less power.
The platform also integrates ToneTag's Small Action Language Model (SALM), enabling merchants to complete banking tasks such as checking personalised credit offers, determining eligibility for government schemes and obtaining business recommendations through conversational AI.
The launch marks ToneTag's latest expansion beyond its soundwave-based payments technology into enterprise AI applications for financial services.
Founded in Bengaluru, ToneTag has developed soundwave-based data transmission technology that enables contactless payments and offline transactions. The company has raised $87.8 million across six funding rounds, including a recent $3.8 million strategic investment from Qualcomm Ventures. Its existing investors also include ValueQuest Scale Fund and Iron Pillar.
As banks compete to expand digital services for India's vast MSME ecosystem while keeping customer acquisition and servicing costs under control, voice-led AI platforms such as eKosha could emerge as an alternative channel for merchant engagement, particularly in semi-urban and rural markets where multilingual and low-bandwidth interactions remain critical.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from TechCircle.