Fino Payments Bank plans to go deeper into Kerala’s rural areas

Fino Payments Bank has launched ‘Gully Gully Fina’ campaign to go deeper into the interiors of Kerala.

“Our objective is to increase banking access in the State, especially in rural areas. Through this initiative, we on boarded over 700 merchants as banking points in Kerala of which close to 200 are BPCL outlets. Our plan is to increase reach further and triple merchants by March 2021,” said Shailesh Pandey, Chief Sales & Distribution Head (South, West and Central). The bank is present across all the 14 districts and plans to go deeper inside the geographies to provide banking access in remote villages, he added.

Quoting State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) data, he said the total number of branches of all PSU, private, regional rural banks, small finance banks and cooperative banks in the State put together is 7,421. Of which, only 6.5 per cent of the branches are present in rural areas, while semi-urban locations account for 62.4 per cent and urban areas have 31.1 per cent of the bank branches.

In this context, Fino’s focus on increasing banking presence in the State’s rural areas assumes significance, he said.

Biswajeet Sinha, Zonal Head, said the micro ATM-enabled merchant points are present in the neighbourhood and open till late hours making it easier for customers to bank. One can open new bank account, get instant debit cards, make deposits and withdrawals, do money transfer and pay utility bills at these points. Rural customers can also get assistance in downloading and operating Fino mobile banking app Bpay.