Fino Payments Bank Introduces Sweep Account Facility

by Shrutee K/DNS

Mumbai: In a move aimed at enhancing banking experience for existing customers as well as tapping new customers, Fino Payments Bank (FPB) announced the launch of sweep account facility in association with Suryoday Small Finance Bank (SSFB). This facility allows customers to seamlessly transfer balance in their account in excess of Rs 1 lakh to SSFB (partner bank) account. While this facility ensures RBI guidelines on Rs 1 lakh deposit limit for payments banks is adhered to, it also gives customers the safety of a bank account to park excess funds, which can be utilised whenever they need. 

Announcing the launch of the sweep account facility, Rishi Gupta, MD & CEO, Fino Payments Bank said, “Product innovation is at the core of Fino’s strategy for enhancing customer experience. CASA plus or the sweep account, is therefore an important offering as customers stand to benefit. The introduction of this facility is in line with our vision of being the one stop banking point for our customers and we are pleased to have Suryoday Small Finance Bank as our sweep account partner.”

“Going forward, we will explore opportunities to tap MSME customers and other segments that can benefit from Fino’s sweep account facility,” he added.

R Baskar Babu, CEO & MD, Suryoday Small Finance Bank said “Our common focus on providing the best customer experience and solutions has resulted in this partnership. Through this association, we aim to enable hassle-free and seamless services to all customers of Fino Payments Bank who will automatically become Suryoday Bank customers too. This to us is just the beginning of a relationship and we hope to offer more meaningful products to our new customers, in the near future.”

To enable the sweep account facility in their Fino bank account, customers can use both physical and digital channels of Fino Payments Bank. They can either visit any of the Fino’s branches and merchant points for assisted service or use mobile banking app BPay to enable it on their own. In either case, sweep account facility will be enabled only after receiving specific consent from the customer.

An added benefit with sweep account facility is that customers get to earn applicable interest rateof each bank on the balance maintained in FPB and SSFB accounts.

In case a customer does not enable sweep account facility, the Rs 1 lakh regulatory restriction on account balance remains.

The sweep account facility will be available across all the geographies where Fino Payments Bank has operations. Currently, the bank has presence across 25 states, with a network of 425 banking outlets and over 75000 merchant points servicing close to a million customers.

  

About Fino Payments Bank:Fino Payments Bank (FPB) is the only entity in its space that has experience in providing technology enabled banking services in unbanked and under banked areas. Promoted by Fino Paytech Ltd, FPB’s ‘phygital’ approach is backed by strong Distribution, Technology and Partnership strategy that makes banking simple, convenient and paperless. It has a nationwide distribution network of over 400 branches and more than 75000 banking points. This includes a significant number of outlets of Fino’s strategic partner Bharat Petroleum (BPCL).

FPB provides banking services to its target customers using technology platforms such as Aadhaar-enabled Payment System (AePS), mPOS devices, Micro ATMs, tablet or mobile. On the digital front, FPB offers mobile banking app BPay, Net banking, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and FASTag for toll payments.

About Suryoday Small Finance Bank:Suryoday Small Finance Bank Ltd (previously known as Suryoday Micro Finance Ltd) kick-started its banking operations in January 2017. As on December 2018, it has 79 bank branches across 8 states Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Odisha, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Karnataka apart from its existing 213 door step banking outlets. The Bank’s net worth as of September 2018 was Rs. 582 Crore Capital Adequacy ratio of 27% and long-term credit rating ‘A’ by ICRA and short-term credit rating ‘A1+’ by CRISIL. 

On the liabilities side, SSFB offers CASA, FD, Tax saver FD and RD products with one of the most competitive deposit rates in the industry. Currently a   savings account can get an interest rate of up to 7.25%, whereas for an FD, the customer can earn up to 9% interest rate. For senior citizens, the interest rate offered is 9.5%.