KOCHI, August 21, 2015
Three nationalised banks have volunteered to revive the flagging fortunes of banking kiosks, also known as mini ATMs, launched by Akshaya centres almost a year ago.
Realising the project’s potential to expand their footprint among the hitherto uncovered rural and urban populace, the State Bank of India, the State Bank of Travancore and the Canara Bank have offered to allot more kiosks to Akshaya entrepreneurs under more liberalised terms.
“Moves are afoot to increase the limit of cash transactions through these kiosks from the existing Rs.10,000 a day. To make the process less cumbersome, you only need to submit Aadhaar number and fingerprint to open a bank account through the kiosks,” K.M. Ebrahim, district coordinator, Akshaya Project, told The Hindu .
Complex procedures
Initially, 188 Akshaya Centres were allotted kiosks to cover 179 sub service areas of ten banks. But only 112 kiosks are active now with their patronage even less. This has been attributed to the rather complex procedures of opening bank accounts and the delay in crediting the commission to the Akshaya entrepreneurs’ accounts.
“The State level banking committee is already seized of the issues. With the three banks liberalising the terms, more Akshaya centres, especially the 56 centres in urban areas, which had initially turned down the kiosks, have expressed interest in the scheme,” he said.
The single finger print scanner earlier supplied free of cost has to be bought by entrepreneurs now for about Rs. 3,600.
All kiosks except those of Federal Bank follow a similar model where anyone can walk in, give their Aadhaar number and fingerprints to open a new account and remit or withdraw money from their accounts.