Ramanna from a village in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh has just deposited Rs 500 into his account using a mobile phone.

All he had to do was show his photo to the village's business correspondent (BC) appointed by Syndicate Bank, use a standard phrase such as the customer's name (in this case, “My name is Ramanna”) on the phone to establish his voice, ask for the service required — deposit or withdrawal, and transact.

Within minutes, the BC gets a message confirming the ‘successful' transaction, and a receipt is printed out at the BC's end.

As part of its financial inclusion programme, Syndicate Bank has launched a pilot project on the mobile technology platform in four villages of Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh. The bank has garnered about 9,800 accounts with deposits of over Rs 5 lakh in these villages in the couple of months since the launch of this project, Mr Devananda Upadhyaya, General Manager – Financial Inclusion, Marketing and Insurance, Syndicate Bank, told Business Line .

The bank plans to bring 117 more villages under this technology for its financial inclusion programme.

How it works

The mobile technology platform works on a two-factor authentication process including a photograph and interactive voice response (IVR). Customers can transact on this mobile technology using their mobile phone or the BC's phone. The bank provides them with unique number for mobile transactions. Syndicate Bank is also in talks with Indian Grameen Services, which is the technology service provider for this project, to include a biometric or thumb impression authentication in place of the photograph, he said.

Mr Upadhyaya also said that the bank has opened 132 branches in financial inclusion villages so far. The bank has been allotted 1,493 villages for financial inclusion with population of over 2,000.

By this fiscal-end, the bank plans to cover 750 villages either by branches or through BCs. It has also appointed 723 BCs, and trained 147 of them using the training module of Indian Institute of Banking and Finance, he pointed out.

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