New Delhi:In a move to revamp its infrastructure, Fino Payments Bank plans to deploy multi-utility Android-based mPOS devices across 10,000 banking points throughout the country in a phased manner over the next 12 months, the company said on Thursday.
The move is aimed at eliminating the inconvenience of carrying multiple devices by the representatives leading to improved services to customers, the company said.
“In the next 12 months, we would deploy these devices at 10,000 of our retail as well as corporate banking points, including branches, Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) outlets, franchisee points and partner bank’s business correspondent(BC) channel,” said Ashish Ahuja, executive vice president and head-products, Fino Payments Bank.
“We have already deployed around 2000 devices to enhance doorstep and neighbourhood banking services in urban as well as rural areas for the convenience of our customers,” added Ahuja.
As of now, the correspondents of the bank have to carry multiple devices to facilitate finger print authentication and digital transactions.
The key feature of the new Android-based mPOS is that it is a single device with in-built finger print scanner, card reader, camera, printer and tablet, in a portable form factor, a statement from the bank said.
“In addition to having multiple functionalities, mPOS device is also interoperable. That means customers with debit cards issued by other banks can also do payments and withdrawal transactions at Fino’s banking points,” said Ahuja.
Once the new infrastructure is in place, the company claims its executives carrying the device will be able to provide all the banking services, including account opening, deposit, withdrawal, money transfer, product sales (insurance, gold loan leads, BC lending services) and Aadhaar-enabled payment systems (AEPS), to customers right to their doorstep.
Fino which was a remittance service provider received authorization from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a bank in March 2017. It started operations in September last year.
The bank, whose customers have to maintain Rs1,000 as minimum balance requirement, offers 4% interest on savings deposits.
The bank has a network of 422 branches and 25,000 access points spread across 14 states. These access points are in addition to the corporate BC agents that provide services for other banks.
To be sure, a similar move has been adopted by India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) which will press into service postmen equipped with smartphones to go door to door and will open 3,250 customer access points across 650 districts when it launches operations in April, seeking to cater largely to under-banked rural areas.
India has three other operational payment banks—Airtel Payments Bank, Paytm Payments Bank and Aditya Birla Idea Payments Bank.