“The Sun is a daily reminder that we too can rise again from darkness, that we too can shine our own light”
It is probably on this thought that the “Aditya Birla Idea Payments Bank Limited” was built on. The initiative started as a joint venture by Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd. and Idea Cellular since 22nd February 2018 as India’s 4th Payments bank.
To those who are unaware of what a payments bank is, “Payments Banks are a special category of banks that can accept deposits of up to 1 lakh but cannot give loans or credit cards.” – Wikipedia.
My roots are deeply grounded in Jaynagar – a small village in Bengal where my family hails from. The village is famous for its numerous small sweet shops who make a sweet delicacy popularly known as “Moya”. We still have extended roots in the village many of whom operate such small sweet shops.
The village being very small, there is very limited options in case of banking. There are a couple of PSU banks who operate in the vicinity, but the quality of service provided is not up to the par primarily because of shortage of resources. Coming from economically inferior sections, a huge number of teens and young adults, mainly females, don’t operate a bank account. One of the contributing factors for this situation being the minimal balance (Rs. 1000 or Rs 2000) that will be blocked when one opens up an account in a bank.
Among the initial group of payments bank that were made live, Airtel Payments Bank, Fino Payment Bank, Paytm Payments bank lacked to support conviction among the mass. There was a fear in the minds of the general public of their money being misplaced by these entities. Indian Post Payments bank had the trust of the people. But due to lack of a concrete promotion strategy, the number of users was limited.
There are 2 families who have been at the heart of the Indian economy – The Tata Family and The Birla Family. Common people of India has looked up to various initiatives of these group of companies with great pride and respect. So, when the Aditya Birla Idea Payments Bank Limited was launched, it opened up a new boom in the payments bank section among the lower income group.
Coming back to the village of Jaynagar, people are now encouraged to open up zero balance exhaustive accounts with just a digital copy of Adhaar card and a couple of photographs. There being no penalty for maintaining of a minimum working balance, people of Jaynagar now don’t have to keep track of the minimum threshold. The rate of interests being considerably higher, people are generating more than those investing in government banks. There is also significantly higher number of banking points for the Aditya Birla Idea Payments Bank. Essentially, any outlet that deals in mobile recharges and payments is now converted to a banking point.
Moreover, the whole network is secure. The whole network is controlled from the user side Adults and even teens can easily remember their account numbers, and this have helped them in engaging in more of online transaction for basic daily events like buying stuff from the local grocers.
Moreover, there is an assortment of benefits that the users are getting by transacting using these accounts that were initially absent in conventional banking. There are many cashback promotions that have attracted mainly young adults and teens t transact more among them to redeem the said offers.
People of Jaynagar are now in a better banking situation primarily due to the payments bank under the Aditya Birla group. They can save their nominal daily savings in these banks without fear of theft and loss. They are at mental peace as they now don’t have to carry cash everywhere. With just a click of a button, they are able to transact anywhere in the globe within a matter of seconds.
If that’s not a digital revolution, nothing can ever be.
