10072 - At IDFC's Bharat Banking, micro ATMs hold key to govt subsidy and micro finance business - Busniess Standard

At IDFC's Bharat Banking, micro ATMs hold key to govt subsidy and micro finance business

Nearly 32,000 pensioners will be using the IDFC Bank Micro ATM infrastructure to access their benefits in coming days

Jyoti Mukul  |  New Delhi 

May 30, 2016 Last Updated at 12:57 IST

With focus on mass rural market, IDFC Bank’s Bharat Banking division is eyeing government business like disbursal of subsidy and scholarships in a big way. It has started tying up with state governments for various schemes and is also looking to provide micro financing.

Ravi Shankar, Head- Bharat Banking, told Business Standard, IDFC Bank has partnered with Andhra Pradesh government in Krishna district for direct benefit transfer through Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AEPS). Besides, going forward, the bank would look at micro financing schemes for purchase of motorcycles, equipment and even low-cost housing.

The Andhra Pradesh government initiated DBT transfer from May 1, starting with social security pension. It will be extended to other government entitlements and finally to Public Distribution System (PDS), making PDS payments cashless.

Shankar said the bank uses interoperable micro ATMs that enhance last mile financial access through digitisation. The Micro ATM functions like a ‘Bank-in- a-Box’. The first interoperable social security pension was drawn through an IDFC Bank AEPS Micro ATM on May 1 at Ganapavaram, Mylavaram mandal in Krishna district.

Nearly 32,000 pensioners will be using the IDFC Bank Micro ATM infrastructure to access their benefits in coming days. The bank estimates over time, concentrated coverage of banking services would touch the lives of 46 lakh citizens in the Krishna district alone.

The bank’s Micro ATM is owned and operated by women members of self-help groups (SHGs), approved for financial support by the government of Andhra Pradesh. This is helping in promoting entrepreneurship in the Krishna district, the bank said.

The Micro ATM agent would cater to customers at Panchayat offices (in the first few days of every month) and later from their respective residences/ work areas. These Micro ATMs offer all basic banking services to customers of any bank, including deposits, withdrawals and transfers.

In the Krishna district, people can draw their entitlements in their neighbourhood itself, by transacting on any of the 500 Micro ATMs deployed by IDFC Bank across villages.

The full package of fund disbursal under government’s MNREGA, pension, scholarships and cashless PDS would also be carried to other districts, said Shankar.

These ATMs work like tablets which have applications developed internally and have biometrics and printer attached to them. They are available at fixed outlets which could be kirana stores where the shop owner is the operator. The applications loaded on it allow deposits and withdrawal facilities and service requests. Retailer has a current account with the bank. He dispenses and accepts cash even as the customer does not need to have an account with IDFC Bank.

The micro ATMs also provide instant account opening and activation, working on multiple identifiers including Aadhaar-based authentication, mobile numbers, debit cards and bank account numbers.

Shankar said IDFC Bank’s Bharat Banking branches would be set up in semi urban and rural areas. “They have a catchment area of 25-30 km. We have a vision of creating large low-cost banking infrastructure.”

He said their business model was different from banks. “It is an outreach model. Officers reach out to customers and offer services at doorsteps. We are closer to micro finance organisations. Besides, we also offer customised savings products to people. We layer it with new technology.”

Some 35 such branches have already been set up in around nine districts of Madhya Pradesh. Besides, it has started building bank network in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, where it has 10 branches.

9939 - Public cautioned against disclosing ATM card number, PIN or Adhaar details to anyone on phone - Echo of India

Public cautioned against disclosing ATM card number, PIN or Adhaar details to anyone on phone

Port Blair

4 May 2016

Recently two cases of ATM fraud have been reported at Police Station Aberdeen recently for debiting cash Rs. 9,900/- and 20,000/- by unknown subscribers to whom the victims had disclosed aadhaar detail and serial number of the ATM card.

Similarly, people have fallen victim to allurement through phone calls, SMS, emails wherein the recipient is told to deposit some money in order to receive some ‘prize’ ‘lottery’ or ‘cash reward’. 

The recipients are asked to forward their names, addresses and photographs etc. to an email id specified in the SMS and then to deposit cash in some specified Bank account number. The victim is trapped in a phased manner over a period of time and before he comes to realize that he has lost his hard earned money to the fraudsters, the culprits are untraceable and the money not recoverable.

A&N Police time and again alerts people through media and announcements not to disclose Bank ATM Card numbers, adhaar details  or PIN details to anyone on mobiles. Banks never ask customers over phone or through e-mail or SMS for such details.

Public should remain alert to such fake calls for ATM Nos. or PIN, adhaar details alluring messages, e-mails or phone calls and not fall into such traps in order to protect themselves from being cheated. 

9734 - In a first, DCB Bank starts Aadhaar-based ATMs - TNN

In a first, DCB Bank starts Aadhaar-based ATMs

PTI | Apr 3, 2016, 02.53 PM IST

MUMBAI: In a first for any domestic bank, small-sized lender DCB Bank has started an Aadhaar-based ATM usage facility wherein a customer can transact using his biometric details instead of the PIN.

"We have started the first ATM in the country which operates using the Aadhaar data. One can do a transaction without the card as well," the bank's managing director and chief executive Murali Natrajan told PTI.

The user can key-in the 12-digit Aadhaar number or swipe the card at an automated teller machine (ATM) to start a transaction, but at the stage of confirming the identity, it requires biometric details rather than the PIN.

"All you have to do to authenticate is put your finger on the scanner. This is better than PIN, which can be forgotten because of multiple bank accounts," he said.

Seeding the bank account with the Aadhaar number will be essential before a customer can use the facility, he said, adding that initially, only DCB Bank customers will be able to make use of the service.

The solution has been developed in-house and involves connecting up with the Aadhaar server to authenticate the identity of the customer every time a transaction is initiated, he said.

Natrajan said it is a comparatively inexpensive solution and the bank, which currently has 400 ATMs, is targeting to cover its entire network under the system within a year.

The first of the Aadhaar-based ATMs has been installed at its corporate office in the megapolis' Lower Parel area and Natrajan said it will be waiting for a month more for the technology to stabilise before a mass rollout.

He added that it has great potential at the POS (point-of-sale) terminals at the merchants' end to make transactions easier and also for business correspondents.

Top Comment

M.M.SINGH PET PROJECT AADHAR NOW TAKING SHAPE

ALL SUBSIDIES [ FOOD FERTILIZERS PENSIONS TO SR. CTZENS '] NOW BE TRANSFERRED TO ACTUAL USER HAVING AADHAR CARD

Keshav Lal Goswami

Enrolments under Aadhaar are set to cross the 100 crore mark soon. The data is being used for a slew of purposes like opening bank accounts and the government's direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme.

Natrajan said he sees the banking industry coming out with similar technologies so that ATM transactions can be carried out without a card. 

8673 - ‘Don’t allow strangers into ATM kiosks’ - The Hindu

VIRUDHUNAGAR, September 9, 2015

‘Don’t allow strangers into ATM kiosks’

• SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Customers of Pandyan Grama Bank (PGB) were cautioned against disclosing the PIN of their debit cards to anyone and allowing strangers inside the kiosk while using the ATMs.

Speaking at a financial literacy workshop conducted by the bank, in association with NABARD and National Payments Corporation of India, NPCI vice-president Ramachandran Sundaresan said that customers should not take help of others in operating the ATMs using their cards.

Advising the customers to periodically change the PIN of their debit cards, Mr. Sundaresan said that customers should press the cancel button before leaving the ATMs, if their transaction process was disrupted.

“Never reveal the PIN, one-time password, expiry date to anyone, even if they claim to be calling from the bank. Some people try to get the details on the threat of their cards getting blocked or on the promise of giving some gifts,” he said.

Link Aadhaar cards

He wanted the customers to register their mobile numbers with the banks and also to link their Aadhaar cards with bank accounts to get government benefits.

Bank Chairman S. Karthikeyan, who welcomed the gathering, said that such programmes would not only benefit those who attended but also others as the message of safe banking and other services reached them through word of mouth.

7088 - Banks back PIN-based authentication even as NDA regime pushes for biometric verification - EWconomic Times

Banks back PIN-based authentication even as NDA regime pushes for biometric verification

Sugata Ghosh & Sangita Mehta, ET Bureau Dec 19, 2014, 10.17AM IST

MUMBAI: Can the poor, illiterate, unbanked masses, unfamiliar with technology and multiple passwords, remember and key in the 4-digit PIN to withdraw money from ATMs and use the debit card that the Modi government wants banks to offer? Isn't it simpler for a customer to give her fingerprint on a biometric reader that's linked to the Aadhaar database, to prove that she is, indeed, the person she claims to be? Not really, say many bankers

Dirt and grime on fingers of labourers and farm workers may often block biometric recognition; even when fingerprints are recorded, transmitting the images will require more bandwidth and time; besides, if folks in remote, impoverished African villages can remember the PIN, why can't those in rural India, they counter — arguing 'why reinvent the wheel' and complicate a transaction when chip & PIN, a globally accepted technology, is already in place.

This old and simmering standoff, though not so apparent, between banks and the government — with the Reserve Bank of India occasionally striking a middle ground — had almost dissipated with the defeat of Congress and exit of Nandan Nilekani as the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India, the agency that issues the 12-digit Aadhaar number.

But the subject has once again resurfaced in the wake of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana — the financial inclusion programme that, among other things, envisages issue of debit cards to 75 million new bank accountholders.

The issue cropped up a fortnight ago, at a meeting of the Indian Banks' Association. It was suggested that banks will have to gradually change their systems and machines to enable biometric authentication for cards as well as ATM transactions.

"A large private bank has been asked to carry out a pilot project for biometric authentication while making payments through PoS (point of sales) terminals with merchant establishments... In the absence of a social security number, we appreciate the importance of Aadhaar and the government's decision to transfer direct benefits into Aadhaar-linked accounts. But why do you need biometric authentication for debit card and ATM transactions? An accountholder visiting a bank can show her Aadhaar card, which also has her picture printed on it, to withdraw money," a banker familiar with the recent discussions told ET.

Some of these objections were raised in the past, but banks found the team led by Nilekani — a highprofile technocrat with an immaculate track record and proximity to the Gandhis and RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan — rather invincible.

Today, they are faced with an equally formidable phenomenon: a nationalistic fervour wrapped around a 'Make in India' credo that backs local technology (like the biometric authentication) and noprofit local payments entity (like the National Payments Corporation of India).

While officials from the Indian Banks' Association insist that banks are "on the same page" with the government on Aadhaar, senior bankers, speaking on condition of anonymity, convey a different message.

"This would mean dual technology and dual cost — linking with the Aadhaar server for KYC as well as bank server for the fund source. It would mean reconfiguring the software and equipping all banks, branches, ATM and PoS terminals with biometric readers. It's just not the cost. That can be absorbed, but this is a technology which cannot be used by customers while they are travelling overseas where there is no system of biometric authentication for payments," said the technology head of a large bank.

The pilot project will indicate whether payments based on biometric authentication would catch on. If it does, it may be an effective way to popularise and push Aadhaar. But it may not go down well with many banks which will have to grudgingly execute a new technology — only a year after they migrated from the fraudprone magnetic strip cards to the comparatively safer chip-and-PIN cards.