Telecom operator Bharti Airtel has launched its Payments Bank pilot, becoming the first among Payments Bank licensees to go live: around 10,000 Airtel retail outlets in Rajasthan will operate as banking points, allowing customers to open Payments Bank accounts, and deposit and withdraw cash. Account opening Account opening is powered by the Aadhaar e-KYC (digital "know your customer" authentication, for collecting customer details), and doesn't require any documents. We don't know what kind of KYC Airtel has done for its telecom subscribers, but it's unlikely to be bank-grade authentication. Telecom operators are allowed to transfer KYC info from the telco business to the Payments Banks business, as per the operating guidelines. This gives telecom operators a distinct competitive advantage over others, if they've done the KYC right. Also note that Reliance Jio has been authenticating users using Aadhaar, and retailers are also signing up users for the Jio Payments bank at the same time. Mobile number is bank account number What's particularly interesting is that for Airtel, the "customers Airtel mobile number will be his/her bank account number". So what happens when a user ports out of Airtel to, say, Idea Cellular? Looks like there won't be much change, except in terms of availing of services digitally: while Airtel customers can access services via the Airtel Money app, through USSD by dialing *400#, and IVR by dialing 400. Both the USSD & IVR options are available in Hindi and English. Non Airtel customers can access Airtel Payments Bank's services by…
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