Airtel launches India’s first Payments Bank in Rajasthan

Airtel Payments Bank Limited on 23 November 2016 launched India's first live Payments Bank in Rajasthan. The bank will provide an interest of 7.25% per annum on deposits.

The Bank rolled out a pilot of its banking services in Rajasthan, which is aimed at testing systems and processes ahead of a full-scale pan-Indian launch.

Key highlights of the service

• Aadhaar based paperless e-KYC, with no extra documents, is required to open the account. Customer's Airtel mobile number would be his/her bank account number.

• Customers in towns and villages across Rajasthan will be able to open bank accounts at Airtel retail outlets. These outlets will act as Airtel banking points and will offer a range of basic, convenient banking services.

• Airtel Bank will commence the pilot project with banking points at 10000 Airtel retail outlets.

• The customers will also be able to avail extra benefits like money transfer to any bank account in India, personal accidental insurance of Rs 1 lakh with every savings account, easy deposit and withdrawal facility across a wide network of Airtel retail outlets.

• Airtel will have a network of over 100000 merchants across the state who will accept digital payments from Airtel Payments Bank. This will offer the customers the convenience of cashless purchase of goods/services using their bank accounts/ wallets.

Background

On 19 August 2015, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had granted in-principle approval to 11 payment banks applicants under the Guidelines for Licensing of Payments Banks. The guidelines were issued on 17 November 2014.