Fino Payments Bank taps dairy sector to digitise payments

The newly launched payments bank, Fino Payments Bank, has tied up with Mother Dairy and Gokul Dairy to digitise payments of milk pourers.

As the largest milk producing nation with over 160 million tonnes of output annually, India has over 15 million milk producers associated with more than 1,50,000 village dairy cooperatives. The milk producers or pourers, a key component of Fino's target customer base, largely get paid in cash at the milk collection centres (MCC) where they deposit milk, a release said.

Rishi Gupta, MD and CEO, Fino Payments Bank  said, "As the torchbearers of White Revolution, the hard-working milk pourer segment across the country deserves to get the benefits of digital banking. While the segment plays a vital role in the nation's growth story, it also needs to be financially secure. With this thought, we have focused on the dairy sector to enable digital payments and going forward, we will explore other rural, agro-based and allied sectors that need digitised payments and banking services."

To facilitate digital payments for milk pourers of Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Private Ltd, a subsidiary of National Dairy Development Board, Fino Payments Bank will open accounts and provide instant RuPay debit cards. The same will be done for milk pourers affiliated to Maharashtra-based Gokul dairy.

Post account opening, the payment due to milk pourers will be directly credited into their accounts. They can withdraw money from the MCCs or from any ATM using RuPay debit card. Further, customers can use Fino's mobile banking app BPay to make digital payments and do other banking transactions.

"Through our simple and convenient banking model, we would encourage our customers to save money and make payments through bank accounts. As a digital bank, our branches and banking points deploy Aadhaar-based authentication and verification to facilitate secure, safe and paperless banking transactions. Customers also have the option to use BPay, our mobile banking app," added Gupta.

With each dairy having thousands of MCCs, Fino will add these centres to its banking network thereby increasing its reach and providing enhanced customer convenience. This is bound to make life easier for milk pourers. Contrast this to the earlier situation where people had to travel quite a distance to the nearest bank to withdraw money at extra cost and loss of income.

Fino Payments Bank started operations in July 2017 with 410 branches and 25,000 access points across 14 states.