Fino Payments Bank, (“Fino Bank”, “The Bank”), established in 2017, has transformed rural banking with its innovative approach to bridge the last mile service delivery gap.
The Bank, which started off with 25000 banking access points in 2017, grew the network by 40 times in 5 years. By the end of FY22, Fino Bank created a branchless network of over one million points with presence across 90% of the districts in the country. This includes half amillion own points and another half a million of API partners. The Bank is focusing on expanding its footprint in East and North East, including West Bengal.
“Setting up branches across more than 6.6 lakh villages in the country is not feasible for banks, said Mr. Shailesh Pandey, Chief Sales Officer, Fino Payments Bank. “Our innovative tech-enabled business correspondent (BC) or merchantmodel perfectly bridged the gap. The asset light branchless banking channel is the best bet to go deeper into rural geographies and provide banking services at a low cost. In line with this strategy, we have ventured into West Bengal, Odisha and Assam where we have our own network of around 50000 points and intend to penetrate deeper into these geographies to reach out to more customers. We are adding over 1000 new points daily across the country and intend to continue the momentum to improve banking access for the benefit of masses.”
TheMicro ATM and AePS enabled neighbourhood banking outlets such as kirana and mobile repair shops are driving the acceptance of formal banking. They played a critical role during COVID by providing access to cash to the needy, especially beneficiaries of direct benefit transfers (DBT).
Going forward Fino Bank is focusing on two critical offerings for growth. Customer acquisition (CASA – Current Account, Savings Account) and Cash management services (CMS) along with increasing transactions on other offerings such as remittance, Micro ATM/ AePS and cross sell.
“Along with CASA, where we have a customer base of over 4.59 million and opened 2 million new accounts in FY22, CMS is a high growth product for us. We work closely with 131 partners across NBFCs, MFI, Banks and entities such as ecommerce, logistics, cab aggregators etc to offer CMS. Our branchless network helped these entities digitize cash worth close to Rs 24000 crore in FY22 growing at 102% YoY. Interestingly, the physical cash is used to service the withdrawal requests of local people, a win-win for all” added Mr. Pandey.
At Fino Bank pointone can open new bank, make deposit, withdrawal and money transfer transactions. Further, customers can access third party products such as credit, gold loan, life, general and motor insurance.
Recently, Fino Bank received the regulator’s approval to start international remittance, RD, FD and Mutual Fund distribution with partners. The neighbourhood merchant point is truly on its way to become the one-stop shop for banking.
