Airtel Payments Bank makes 70 Andhra, Telangana villages go cashless

Hyderabad, Feb 14 (IANS) Airtel Payments Bank has enabled over 70 villages in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to go cashless.

The company said this was part of its endeavour to take its banking services deep into rural/unbanked areas and contribute to financial inclusion in the state.

These villages now have access to basic banking services and the option of making digital payments, making them less reliant on cash. Airtel Payments Bank aims to enable 1,000 villages to go cashless under this initiative.

Every village, with no previous access to direct banking, now has at least one Airtel Payment Bank outlet that provides convenient banking services including cash deposits and withdrawals, and seamless money transfer facility.

"With this initiative we are taking banking services to the rural areas and also enabling them to be less reliant on cash. This initiative further demonstrates the reach and effectiveness of our retail based model that allows us to take our banking services closer to every Indian in a quick and efficient manner," said MD and CEO of Airtel Payments Bank Shashi Arora.

Airtel Bank currently has a network of over 15,000 neighbourhood Airtel retail stores, which also function as banking points. This is more than the total number of ATMs in the state. The Bank aims to scale its network to 25,000 banking points across the state.

It will not charge any processing fee from its customers and merchants partners for digital transactions, thereby encouraging them to adopt cashless payments.

Airtel Payments Bank has committed an investment of Rs 3,000 crore across its national operations and plans to build a digital payments ecosystem with over 5 million merchants. Over one million merchants are already on board.

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