Airtel may expand Payments Bank pilot to 3 southern states

MUMBAI: Airtel is looking to extend its payments bank pilot project to Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka in the next couple of weeks, to test out the services before a pan-India roll out. The company is planning around 20,000 Airtel outlets as banking points in Andhra and Telangana, and 15,000 in Karnataka, it said Sunday Over one lakh customers have already opened savings account with Airtel Payments Bank in less than two weeks of the first payments bank pilot going live in Rajasthan., Close to 70 per cent of these accounts have been opened in rural areas, the company added. Airtel has launched India’s first ever payment bank through the pilot in Rajasthan. "Our network allows us to take our banking services closer to the customer. We are also getting a good response from merchants and have further accelerated their onboarding," Shashi Arora, MD at Airtel Payments Bank, said in the statement.

Airtel Payments Bank, a subsidiary of the country's leading mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel, rolled out pilot services across 10,000 Airtel retail outlets in Rajasthan in Novemeber. It facilitates cashless purchases of goods and services through mobile phones, giving an impetus to the digital payments ecosystem amid the cash crunch effected by demonetisation. The payments bank offers basic banking services to customers by leveraging Airtel’s retail network. It offers highest annual interest rate of 7.25 per cent and an insurance of Rs 1 lakh per account.