Remember the humble postman who was the single-point contact of remote villages of Bharat with the rest of the world in the pre-globalization India, circa 1991?

Financial services major Paytm may now be following a similar model. The Paytm Payments Bank, India’s first bank providing zero balance accounts and zero charges on digital transactions, plans to train and fan out one lakh banking business correspondents, including women, in a year across India’s Tier-I and II towns, villages and remote areas. They will function as ‘mobile banking agents’ to the unbanked people.

“They will be equipped with smartphones, biometric devices, apps with banking services etc to reach out to the unbanked people. They will receive and disburse money like any bank’s branch, and provide basic banking services,” Deepak Abbot, Senior Vice-President, Paytm, told BusinessLine on Wednesday.

Last year, Paytm Payments Bank launched “Paytm Ka ATM” outlets across India that allows customers to open saving accounts and deposit/withdraw money.

Abbot said Paytm, the e-commerce payment system and digital wallet, currently has 20 crore customers and has evolved as a full-stake payments provider by offering multi-source and multi-destination solutions. “We plan to process Rs 60,000 crore in monthly bank transfers by the end of this year. We are also planning to invest Rs 500 crore in Paytm’s core business—promoting bank transfers and building new products—and hope to increase the number of transactions from a billion to 2 billion each quarter.”

It currently has 10 crore KYC compliant users and 3.5 crore savings accounts.

Recently, Paytm Payments Bank introduced a new initiative, “Paytm AshaKiran”, to empower rural women by educating them about financial services and create new employment opportunities across smaller towns and cities in India’s formal banking systems. In the first year, it plans to empower one million women through entrepreneurial opportunities. It will organize workshops across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, Renu Satti, Managing Director and CEO, said.

For the first phase, the bank has partnered with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as part of its Disha project, supported by IKEA Foundation and women-related organizations. They will mobilize self-help groups and offer skill development opportunities to rural women by training and certifying them to act as banking correspondents. These women can then act as a catalyst in the nationwide rollout of Paytm’s bank offerings.

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