Airtel Payments Bank plans to extend its pilot services to the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka – in addition to Rajasthan.

Airtel Payments Bank said it will offer incentives to Bharti Airtel’s 260 million plus customers to open savings accounts with Airtel Payments Bank.

There will be special emphasis on educating customers with basic/feature mobile phones to use their phones to make USSD based payments.

Airtel Payments Bank will develop over 3 million merchants, including small stores to accept digital payments. These merchant partners will accept digital payments for goods and services from Airtel Payments Bank customers over mobile phones.

Airtel Payments Bank will not charge any processing fee from its customers and merchants partners for digital transactions.

100,000 of Airtel Payments Bank customers will receive free 100 minutes of Airtel mobile talk-time through a lucky draw – every month.

“We are a digital bank and believe that these initiatives will add to the Government’s efforts to fast track India’s journey towards becoming a cashless economy,” said Shashi Arora, MD and CEO of Airtel Payments Bank.

Airtel Payments Bank will offer incentives in the form of gifts to customers who use digital / cashless mode of payment.

The registration process for merchants will be paperless and would allow them to start accepting payments instantaneously using either an app on smartphone or USSD on feature phone.

There will be withdrawal free of 0.65 percent per transaction to discourage cash withdrawals from Airtel Payments Bank accounts.