Fino Payments Bank to offer net banking, digital savings accounts

As the next step to its tech-assisted physical network, Fino Payments Bank today launched a suite of digital products that can be accessed online and through mobile phones. The focus is to build the transaction platform, said Rishi Gupta, MD and CEO, Fino Payments Bank.

Fino had launched its mobile banking app BPay in 2017. The latest initiatives include Unified Payments Interface (UPI), BHIM app - using which customers can access UPI and make P2P payments, net banking, digi savings account which can be opened with only Aadhaar number and PAN card and FasTag for making digital payments at toll plazas on national highways.

About the acceptability of digital transactions among customers, Gupta said, “About 20-25% of the people in rural areas are downloading the mobile app, but they need some assistance initially. About 70% of the customers who have moved to digital mode are active.”

Fino has tie-ups with ICICI Bank, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance and Exide Life Insurance for cross-selling of loans and insurance products. It is looking for similar tie-ups for selling mutual funds. These would be customised products keeping in mind Fino’s customer segment, Gupta said. It also has a tie-up with BPCL and plans to extend this by putting up more branches in BPCL outlets.

The payments bank is also looking to raise about Rs 300 crore by September and is in the final stage of appointing investment bankers. The money would be used for expansion of its digital initiatives. “We need to keep investing in technology to achieve scale,’’ said Gupta.

Currently, Fino has a deposit base of more than Rs 100 crore and does about 15 million transactions on a daily basis. It is also looking to tie-up with two or three non-banking financial companies.