IPPB will now offer Aadhaar-enabled payment system

Ravi Shankar Prasad announced the rollout of Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) services by India Post Payments Bank (IPPB)
IPPB will now offer Aadhaar-enabled payment system

New Delhi: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced the rollout of Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS) services by India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) on Monday. The move is aimed at expanding access to financial services for millions of unbanked and underbanked customers.

With the launch of AEPS services, IPPB has now become the single largest platform in the country for providing interoperable banking services to the customers of ANY BANK by leveraging the last mile unprecedented reach of the postal network.

'Bank the unbanked, fund the unfunded & secure the unsecured'

Speaking at the First Anniversary Celebrations of IPPB, Prasad congratulated IPPB for achieving the milestone of 1 crore customers and exhorted them to achieve the 5-crore target in the next one year. Referring to the 440 Central schemes on-board the DBT platform, Prasad said that all these schemes must ride on IPPB platform too. He said, 'inclusive' is the key mantra of the government and the department of posts should strive for "banking the unbanked, funding the unfunded and securing the unsecured."

How is the payment service going to be of help?

IPPB's expansive network, complemented with robust interoperable technology platform set up by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), is poised to take banking to each and every household across the remotest parts of the country.

With AePS services any common person, with a bank account linked to Aadhaar, can perform basic banking services, such as cash withdrawals and balance enquiry, irrespective of the bank they hold their account with. To avail these services, a customer with an Aadhaar linked account can simply authenticate his/her identity with a fingerprint scan and Aadhaar authentication to complete a transaction.

AePS services are bank-agnostic and are driven by an inexpensive infrastructure enabling low-cost delivery of doorstep banking services to every section of the society without discrimination, thus bringing forth the dawn of a 'Truly Inclusive Financial System,' an official release said.

Impact on Jan Dhan Yojana

Speaking about the launch of AePS services, Prasad said, "As the biggest Financial Inclusion initiative in the world, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana brought millions into the economic mainstream. There are over 34 crore Jan Dhan accounts out of which 22 crore account holders are in rural India. With IPPB's AePS services, we now have the ability to provide Interoperable Doorstep banking services to customers of any bank, including the 34 crore Jan Dhan account holders, by leveraging the unprecedented last mile reach of IPPB."

logo
PSU Watch
psuwatch.com