Airtel Payments Bank has extended its footprint to south India by rolling out pilot services in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The bank had earlier started a similar pilot in Rajasthan, where over 100,000 customers had opened savings accounts in less than two weeks of commencement of services. The payments bank offers basic banking services to customers by leveraging Airtel’s vast retail network and taking basic banking services to the doorstep of customers via neighborhood Airtel retailers. It will make available the services across 8,000 Airtel retail outlets in Andhra Pradesh and 7,000 outlets in Telangana, which also act as banking points. As much as 70 % of these banking points are in rural areas, thereby driving financial inclusion and reaching unbanked/underbanked areas. Customers opening a savings account with the payments bank will also get one minute of Airtel mobile talk time for every rupee deposited. Shashi Arora, MD & CEO, Airtel Payments Bank, said the bank had received an extremely positive response from customers in Rajasthan and would like to replicate the same in AP and Telangana before the bank rolls out its services nationally. Airtel Payments Bank is a fully digital and paperless bank and customers can access services over their mobile phones, including all feature/basic mobile phones.
