Financial Inclusion to See Upside Potential in Digital Payment

RapiPay, one of the leading assisted payments Fintech company announces free Aadhaar Payment Enabled System ( AEPS ) services for merchants and retailers in order o facilitate the government’s agenda of financial inclusion growth in India, especially rural areas. This initiative will benefit millions of Indian consumers who will be able to withdraw cash from their neighborhood RapiPay agent outlet. The free AEPS activation will encourage more and more retailers to start providing AEPS services to serve customers and grow their business. RapiPay targets to activate over one lakh new AEPS ids to its agents with this move, which means one lakh more ATM machines, for the people. 

The pandemic has resulted in economic disruption affecting people from all walks of life, especially in rural areas. The major hit was taken by small local businesses. The businesses which sailed through this tough period are those who made optimum usage of digital mediums and had adopted multiple avenues to sustain their businesses. RapiPay is one such company that helps shopkeepers and retailers to provide assisted payments and banking services to the unbanked population. Considering the current scenario, RapiPay has taken this major step of waiving off its one-time fees to empower more merchant partners and customers to adopt digital transactions.

Commenting on this announcement, Yogendra Kashyap, CEO, RapiPay said, “At a time when small businesses and people are facing challenges like partial lockdown, social distancing, and curfew, the need of easy access of basic financial services to the underbanked population is paramount. This initiative will help  retailers to use AEPS and offer cash withdrawal facilities to consumers. RapiPay ‘Saathis’ are also benefitted from best commissions. With the second wave of lockdown, we have already seen that our cash-out business has grown by 30 per cent for AEPS and 27 per cent for micro ATM transaction value, for April 2021 over March 2021.”

In the past year of pandemic, RapiPay has witnessed a robust growth of over 250 per cent from pre-Covid to March 2021. The number of agents has quadrupled from 50,000 in February 2020 to 2,00,000 in April 2021. With RapiPay’s presence in the hinterlands of India, the government’s cashless incentives and Direct Benefit Transfers are reaching the unbanked areas successfully. The lockdown has seen demand for AEPS and micro ATMs surging due to near doorstep services provided by Banking Business Correspondents. AEPS and Micro ATMs facilitated millions of customers for cash withdrawals of the benefits they availed under Jan Dhan Yojana, PM-Kissan Samman Nidhi during the pandemic.