Government of Maharashtra Partners YES BANK to onboard Fair Price Shops as Business Correspondents

YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector bank launched a first-of-its-kind joint initiative with the Government of Maharashtra under e-PDS state programme to onboard Fair Price Shops as Business Correspondent Agents. With this initiative, the Government of Maharashtra aims to extend banking and value-added services to the last mile while empowering fair price (ration) shop owners to earn additional revenue.

Under the programme, YES BANK will onboard 40% of all fair price shops in Maharashtra, spanning 12 districts like Palghar, Thane, Pune, Kolhapur, Latur etc. benefiting more than 17000+ ration shop owners and over 70 lakh citizens. The Bank will engage fair price shops to provide banking services such as collection of small-value deposits, receipt and delivery of small-value remittances/other payment instruments, disbursal of small-value credit, and recovery of principal/collection of interest. Additionally, all Fair Price Shops engaged will be provided with handheld devices to collect digital payments through Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) and will also be able to accept payments for ration, through Aadhar Pay. Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AEPS) is a bank-led model that allows online interoperable financial inclusion transactions at any point of sale through the business correspondent of any bank using Aadhaar authentication.

Speaking on the launch, Ritesh Pai, Chief Digital Officer at YES BANK, said “Establishing its leadership position in digital payments yet again, YES BANK is proud to partner Government of Maharashtra to further the state’s financial inclusion programme while helping augment income of Fair Price Shop owners. The Bank remains committed to improving last mile inclusion and translating financial access into enhanced convenience & usage for smoother delivery of Government to Citizen (G2C) services.”

Ration shop owners are one of the most active among banking correspondents and in most districts in India according to government reports, 8 lakh transactions in a month are being reported through these outlets.

Here we need to insert one line about integration with BBPS etc. and the process for the same for customers as well as ration shop owners.

YES BANK, through its technology and program partners will provide not only financial transaction support to the entire programme but also help BCAs with the necessary digital infrastructure and training to be on-boarded successfully and complete digital payments through Aadhaar authentication.

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