Bank reaches at the doorstep of the villagers

People living in villages, such as Shivaji Gulab Dhegre, 22 an owner of a small paan shop in Ghotawade village in Mulshi Taluka, 30 km from Pune, never had a bank account and also have never thought of opening one as they earn just enough income to make both ends meet.

As new technologies are being adapted by the Indian banking industry to take banking to the far away villages, working on the same line Financial Information Network and Operations (FINO), a Mumbai-based Biometric-enabled smart card solutions provider, along with the State Bank of India (SBI), is making a unique offer to Dhegre and the 2,000-odd people of the village, mostly farmers and workers of nearby factories: a bank account (without a passbook), where they can deposit an amount as low as Rs 10.

The most interesting part of this offer is the villages don’t have to go to the bank to deposit or withdraw money. The bank will reach their doorstep.

Ashish Rath, a management trainee with FINO, who is looking after the company’s ground operations in Ghotawade, explained, “The accountholder is provided a biometric smart card, which has personal information and fingerprint details. When the accountholder needs to withdraw or deposit money, all he/she needs is to do is swipe the card on a special machine called the Point of Transfer (POT) machine, and enters the PIN number. All agents of FINO, who go door-to-door, carry the machine.”

A person can deposit a maximum amount of Rs 50,000. In case a customer deposits money more than the limit then, his account is upgraded to the main SBI branch. Kanhaiya Lal, a factory worker, who is ready to open an account, said, “Even if you have a regular bank account, it makes sense to open this account, because the nearest SBI branch is at Pirangut, 8 km away, and the nearest ATM is at Hinjewadi, 25 km away.”

The process of opening an account has been kept simple. One has to just provide the name, address and the amount of land one owns, if any. There is minimal paperwork or extra documents are asked for. Two months back the process was introduced in Pune district, the company is having 4,500 customers in four talukas, Rajgurunagar, Mulshi, Daund, and Ambegaon, informed Sachin Bhahiti, FINO’s district co-ordinator.

The first batch of 60 customers was given their smart cards at Rajgurunagar last Wednesday. Bhahiti is expecting to enroll 2 lakh customers across the district in the next eight months. Rishi Gupta, Chief Financial Officer, FINO informed, “We have a customer base of 5.5 million across the country. We expect Pune region to add to that substantially.”

PSBs headed by SBI to open at least 15,300 ATMs

Recently the Reserve Bank of India has liberated the norms on setting up of ATMs therefore public sector banks (PSB) have drafted enormous development plans to set up at least 15,300 ATMs across the country by the end of this fiscal year.

Under this expansion plan five leading state-owned banks, headed by State Bank, will be setting up 15,300 ATMs to help retail customers, for whom the service has become free from April 1 this year after the implementation of the RBI directives.

State Bank Group, is having the largest number of ATMs in the country, will be opening 13,400 more ATMs in the current fiscal after which the total number will increase to 25,000 by end-fiscal, an SBI official informed.

The official said, "Customer retention, particularly in the retail segment, necessitates setting up of large number of ATMs.

Presently, State Bank Group has 11,600 ATMs pan-India. We plan to more than double this number this fiscal”.

Recently, in the norms related to ATMs, Reserve Bank had permitted banks to open offsite ATMs without its prior approval. The apex bank has also allowed free usage of third party ATMs for customers from April 1.

However, banks have been allowed to charge Rs 18 per transaction from each other for every third party ATM transaction.