BPCL brings banking system at door step in rural Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

Mumbai:During this time of lockdown necessitated to prevent the spread of Corona Virus, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) rose to the occasion to meet the banking needs of common people in rural Andhra Pradesh & Telangana. With people finding it difficult to access ATMs and visit banks, BPCL came to their rescue by enabling BPCL retail outlets disburse cash of around Rs. 55 lakhs through Fino Payments Bank by literally going door to door and providing banking service. This is apart from ensuring supplies of petroleum products – petrol and diesel at their retail outlets and providing LPG cylinder deliveries at the doorstep.

BPCL has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Fino Payments Bank, in which it owns 21% stake, for creating a digital banking and payments ecosystem at BPCL retail outlets. As per this MOU, Fino Payments Bank is used at BPCL retail outlets as business correspondent (BC). Through this facility, BPCL retail outlets are able to provide remittances, cash withdrawals with all norms of ATMs and cash deposit services as per RBI guidelines.Of the around 1000 BPCL retail outlets in AP & Telangana which are FINO enabled Business Correspondent points, more than 500 are in rural areas. To help people fight the pandemic amidst the lockdown, there was an increase in the volume of direct benefit transfers from the Government to the Jan-Dhan accounts of women and farmers. The State Governments had also announced one-time support of Rs 1500 to each food security cardholders through their Aadhar linked bank accounts to meet expenditure on other essential commodities. “As a responsible Corporate Citizen we decided to step up our efforts as the common people in the rural areas were finding it difficult to visit banks due to the lockdown, withdraw money from ATM’s and transfer money to their families at other places in need of money,” said Saibal Mukherji State Head Retail (AP& Telangana). “The pensioners were also finding it difficult to withdraw their pension amount. This is where BPCL came to their rescue by providing them with FINO bank digital payment facility at their door step,” he further added. BPCL Retail outlet staff went door to door disbursing cash to those in need of it in addition to requesting people to visit retail outlet in the vicinity and completing their banking transactions. The Retail outlet dealer in the locality with FINO Business Correspondent facility contacted the Branch Managers of nearby banks and Village Sarpanchs and helped the general public by disbursing cash. The Aadhar Enabled Payment Services of the FINO payment bank was the USP, since many rural communities in AP & Telangana do not have plastic money i.e debit cards which warrant them to invariable visit banks for cash withdrawals. While delivering this yeoman service, the staff of BPCL retail outlets maintained social distance as per government norms. The Delivery boys – “Corona Warriors”- wore PPE gloves, masks and carried sanitizers following the guidelines stipulated by the district authorities.