Bharti Airtel rolls out payments bank

Hyderabad: Bharti Group’s Airtel Payments Bank on Wednesday rolled out its pilot services in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

It offers basic banking services such savings de-posits, withdrawals and payments to its customers. “Unlike the traditional banks, Airtel Payments Bank allows customers to open an account with e-Aadhaar verification at their designated retail outlets,” said Shashi Arora, MD and CEO, Airtel Payments Bank.

RBI had issued in-principle payments licenses to  11 entities in an attempt to deepen financial inclusion. Airtel Payments Bank uses the customer’s mobile number as the account number. It allows them deposit money at the Airtel retail outlet or transfer funds from your accounts.

The customers can pay money to merchants either through its app from a smartphone or using USSD from a basic mobile phone.

This feature could come handy for people, who are unable to pay for basic necessities such as food, etc due to cash crunch. The customers can transfer or pay money from their mobile using Airtel number to merchant using another Airtel phone without any transaction costs.

“We are targeting to get three crore small retailers or kirana stores on-board for our payment platform,” Mr Arora explained.