Must Know: How to open a payments bank account

Payments bank is currently the new exhortation in the banking industry after Digital or e-wallets, serving as a suitable alternative in the stir of demonetisation. As digital wallets are just a medium for making cashless payments, you can't make deposits, earn interest or withdraw money through them. On the other hand traditional banks can do everything payments banks can, but due to their structures they are at times unable to cater to certain segments and geographies. To fill this void, payments bank are established with the chief objective of serving to the unbanked and under banked population with an aim to bring them into the formal financial system.    

But, how can one open a payments bank account? While opening a bank account requires documentations and takes time, with payments banks, the process is fairly straightforward, paperless and instant as they function primarily using mobile phones.  To open an account, all you need to do is to follow the steps mentioned below:    

•  Simply visit a designated retail outlet in your neighborhood to open an account. For example, to open a savings account with Airtel payments bank, just visit a designated Airtel retail outlet near you along with your Aadhar card. You can open an account even without being an Airtel mobile subscriber.
• The account will be opened through a paperless process within minutes through Aadhaar based e-KYC authentication.
• Once the know-your-customer process is done you can deposit or withdraw cash at any of the assigned retail outlets which will then function as banking points.

In case you need to check your account balance and access other services, you can simply use the bank’s mobile application or can make use of IVR calling options and USSD codes.  As of now, payments bank do not offer an ATM, debit or credit card facility. You can only deposit and withdraw cash by visiting the designated retail outlets.  However, they do assist domestic and international remittances, insurance premium payments, bill payments, wage payments, recharges, etc.  Besides convenience an added advantage is that a payments bank also allows you to access banking services and perform transactions, well after the normal banking hours. This eradicates the need for you to make time specifically for travelling to your branch to carry out transactions.

olmdesk@outlookindia.com