Airtel Payments Bank opens One Lakh Savings Accounts in Uttar Pradesh

Airtel Payments Bank has said that it has opened over one lakh (100,000) savings accounts in Uttar Pradesh in the first two weeks of its launch. Approximately 60% of these accounts have been opened in rural areas, underlining the massive scope for serving customers, particularly in unbanked and underbanked pockets of the state.

Airtel Payments Bank, a fully digital and paperless bank, aims to take basic banking services to the doorstep of every Indian by leveraging Airtel’s vast retail network. In Uttar Pradesh, over 12,000 neighbourhood Airtel retail stores also function as banking points, and customers will be able to open savings accounts, deposit and withdraw cash across any of these banking points. Nearly two-thirds of these banking points across the state are in rural areas, helping in extending the reach of services to unbanked regions.

Shashi Arora, MD & CEO, Airtel Payments Bank, said, “We are delighted with the response received from the customers in Uttar Pradesh and look forward to building on this momentum and serve even more customers in the days to come. Airtel Payments Bank is fully committed to taking its simple and convenient services deeper into the state and contribute towards financial inclusion and banking for all. We are also building a digital payments ecosystem that will enable customers to make cashless payments for goods and services across millions of merchants across the country and invite merchants across Uttar Pradesh to be a part of this ecosystem.”

Airtel payments Bank’s bouquet of innovative and convenient services include:

* Digital Banking: Quick and paperless account opening using Aadhaar-based e-KYC. This requires no documents at all, only the customer’s Aadhaar number is needed.

* The customer’s mobile number will be his/her bank account number.

* Interest rate of 7.25 % p.a. on deposits in savings accounts, the highest in India.

* One minute of Airtel mobile talk-time for every Rupee deposited at the time of opening a savings account.

* Money transfer to any bank account in India (Free money transfer from Airtel-to-Airtel numbers within Airtel Payments Bank).

* Free Personal Accidental Insurance of Rs.1 lakh with every Savings Account.

* Easy deposit and withdrawal facility across a wide network of Airtel retail outlets.

* USSD and IVR in 12 languages for non-smartphone customers.

* An online debit card in partnership with MasterCard that can be used to make payments across all online merchants like Flipkart, Amazon and Uber, etc.