Rural Banking Services: Akshaya to Set up 1,535 Kiosks in the State

After the successful implementation of E-Krishi and E-Vidya, Akshaya is now focusing on connecting the rural households to banking services by way of kiosks that will be rolled out in 1535 locations across the state.

After the successful implementation of E-Krishi and E-Vidya, Akshaya is now focusing on connecting the rural households to banking services by way of kiosks that will be rolled out in 1535 locations across the state.

Already in the initial phase, the kiosks have gone live in 196 places and 3876 new accounts have been opened with 1082 transactions.  ‘’The kiosks will have facility to open bank accounts, deposit money and withdraw from accounts in several public and private sector banks. Money transfer to another bank account holder in other locations will also be possible.

Eventually other banking services also will be incorporated in kiosk banking in rural areas,’’ said K V Padmakumar, zonal coordinator, Akshaya.  The Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, has made it mandatory that every sub-service area of 1500 households has to be covered by a banking channel as part of financial inclusion. This move is part of the project of the Union Finance Ministry for helping rural people access to banking services.

K R Balachandran, General Manager, Canara Bank and convenor, State Level Bankers Committee, which is coordinating the project in the state, said that with the launching of the kiosks people who have not so far been covered by banks would be able to have banking access facility.  ‘’Currently mapping of the centres for kiosks is progressing. Most of the banks in the state have already come forward to join the initiative. Software implementation, purchase of biometric systems as part of setting up of kiosks are in various stages of completion. This will be a big boost for the financial inclusion,’’ he said.  SLBC, with the help of lead bank in each district across the state, has mapped unbanked sub-service areas. Here, Akshaya’s role is to provide the details at Akshaya centres to the bank to act as business correspondents for delivering banking services.

 Padmakumar said that training for Akshaya entrepreneurs as well as software installation and collecting biometric data are progressing. “So far we completed training in 586 locations and installed software in 410 of them. A total of 637 devices have been purchased for kiosk banking purposes,’’ he added.

 As of now, the following banks have tied up with Akshaya: State Bank of India (161), State Bank of Travancore( 365), Canara Bank (138), Vijaya Bank (19), Punjab National Bank (38), Union Bank of India (113), Bank of India(34), Central Bank of India (21 out of 29 SSA), Kerala Gramin Bank (148), Federal Bank (101 out of 179 SSA),  Corporation Bank (22), South Indian Bank (60 out of 72 SSA) and Catholic Syrian Bank (68).

Akshaya entrepreneurs who were completed training and software installations have been asked to open settlement accounts, which is a pooling account to the transactions for the entrepreneurs. As of now, 454 number of accounts have been opened inclusive of all banks.

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