Union Bank of India (UBI) has engaged Fino PayTech in more than 400 villages in Gujarat to identity and enrol unbanked population under the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY).
Already, UBI has enrolled more than 9,000 rural customers under the scheme in 41 villages of Gujarat.
With the latest numbers reporting four crore accounts opened under the PMJDY, there is growing concern over a single person opening multiple accounts. Following a directive from the RBI, banks have started to undertake massive exercises to identify and enrol the right persons eligible for a bank account under the scheme.
Taking the lead in Gujarat, UBI flagged off its national financial inclusion project in the districts of Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Junagadh where camps were held in 44 villages. A total of 9,500 hitherto unbanked people in these villages have been enrolled for new bank accounts.
Payments technology firm and leading business correspondent (BC) network operator, Fino PayTech is UBI’s partner in this endeavour. Together they intend to extend the project further in 400 more villages through BC network in Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Mehsana, Surat and Vadodara districts, Vikaas Goel, Vice-President, Fino PayTech, said on Monday.
Explaining the strategy for taking forward banking in rural areas, he said business correspondents brought about paradigm shift in the way rural banking was being conducted. The PMJDY further emphasises their strategic role in making financial inclusion possible. “To penetrate further in rural Gujarat we plan to hire over 200 agents who will identity and enroll the unbanked population for new bank accounts under the scheme.”
“Identification of an eligible household for a bank account is a major development compared to earlier efforts. We will undertake surveys to identify such households prior to enrollments. This will ensure quality of bank accounts and reduce wastages in terms of effort, cost and duplication,” added Goel.
In addition to enrolling new bank accounts, the agents will also service the customers’ banking needs by providing access to various products such as savings, credit, insurance, RD/ FD and remittances.
Apart from Gujarat, Fino is working with UBI on the PMJDY in UP, MP, Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand, among other states, enrolling over 3.75 lakh people for new bank accounts.
Fino PayTech is micro payments solutions provider to banks, financial institutions and MFIs. Together with its service delivery network of 28,000 transaction points it facilitates access to financial services to the unbanked and un-served segments of the population. It services over 2.80 crore active banking customers spread across India, providing a range of financial services like savings, remittance, insurance, credit etc.