Airtel Payments Bank enables over 200 villages across India to go cashless

NEW DELHI: Airtel Payments Bank, India’s first payments bank, has enabled over 200 villages across India to go cashless as part of its endeavour to take its banking services deep into rural/unbanked areas and contribute to financial inclusion in the country.

These villages now have access to basic banking services and the option of making digital payments, making them less reliant on cash. Airtel Payments Bank aims to enable 5000 villages across the country to go cashless under this initiative.

Residents of these villages no longer have to travel huge distances to access a bank and no longer need to keep their money at home and worry about its safety. They are also able to earn a healthy interest rate on their savings deposits. Most households in these villages have one or more family member working in cities/towns across the country and they can now receive money transfers from family members/friends conveniently.

Shashi Arora, MD & CEO – Airtel Payments Bank said, “We are fully committed to the Government’s vision of financial inclusion and banking for all. With this initiative we are taking banking services to the unbanked and also enabling them to be less reliant on cash. This initiative further demonstrates the reach and effectiveness of our retail based model that allows us to take our banking services closer to every Indian in a quick and efficient manner.”

Airtel Payments Bank, a fully digital and paperless bank, aims to take banking services to the doorstep of every Indian by leveraging Airtel’s vast retail network with massive reach in rural pockets. Airtel Payments Bank currently has a network of over 250,000 neighbourhood Airtel retail stores, which also function as banking points. This is more than the total number of ATMs in the country. The Bank aims to scale its network to 600,000 banking points across the country.

Airtel Payments Bank will not charge any processing fee from its customers and merchants partners for digital transactions, thereby encouraging them to adopt cashless payments.

Airtel Payments Bank has committed an investment of Rs. 3000 crore across its national operations and plans to build a digital payments ecosystem with over 5 million merchants. Over one million merchants have already been onboarded across India.