Airtel Payments Bank Creates New Wave with 10000 Savings Accounts in 2 Days

[Toshi Tandon]

Last week, Airtel Payments Bank Ltd created a new wave of payments banks after it got the license from RBI. Perhaps, it is the first company to be operated as differentiated bank accepting payments and leveraging the reach of mobile technology to service the unbanked.

Though this pilot launch has been on a low-scale in Rajasthan, it has amassed 10,000 savings accounts in just 2 days of going live. Taking advantage of its vast retail network, Bharti Airtel turned its 10,000 stores as its banking points.

Airtel Payments Bank is offering a personal accident insurance of 1 lakh per account and the highest interest rate of 7.25% a year on deposits held in savings accounts. While the traditional banks such as SBI, ICICI, HDFC, Axis etc are offering 4% interest.

In a statement, Mr. Shashi Arora, MD & CEO, Airtel Payments Bank, said, “We are very encouraged with the response from customers, in particular, from semi-urban and rural areas. We believe that this differentiated banking model will offer a lot of convenience to customers and are hopeful of onboarding more and more customers in the coming days.”

Simple, Paperless Account Opening:

Airtel Payments Bank is following an e-KYC procedure in the opening savings account. Just visit the nearest Airtel retail store along with your Aadhaar Number. Within minutes, your account at Airtel Payments Bank is ready through electronic Know Your Customer process authenticated with your fingerprint.

Currently, this pilot process is limited to Rajasthan and the company will make full-scale India launch next year. With this, money can be deposited and withdrawn from any Airtel outlet across the country.

Though the payments banks can issue ATM or Debit cards, Airtel would like it to be fully digital and paperless as of now. Just visit the nearest Airtel store and withdraw money. The Airtel subscriber can access banking services via Airtel Money App on smartphones, or via USSD by dialing *400# or by calling IVR 400. If you are a non-Airtel customer then call 8800688006 and access Airtel Payments banking services using your basic feature phone.