Paytm Payments Bank looks to empower 1M women with ‘Paytm AshaKiran’ programme

Paytm Payments Bank, on Tuesday announced a new initiative - ‘Paytm AshaKiran’ to empower women. With this programme, Paytm Payments Bank aims to educate women about financial services and create new employment opportunities across smaller towns and cities in India’s formal banking systems.

For the first phase, the bank has partnered with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as part of its Disha project which is supported by IKEA Foundation and women-related organisations to mobilise self-help groups and organise workshops in smaller cities and towns across Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.

It aims to offer skill development opportunities to rural women by training and certifying them to act as banking correspondents. These women can then act as catalysts in the nationwide roll out of Paytm’s bank offerings. The bank will continue partnering with other government bodies and other such organisations to reach more women across India.

Paytm looks to empower close to one million women within the first year of operations through this programme.

Renu Satti, MD and CEO, Paytm Payments Bank said,

“We aim to bring uninterrupted banking and financial services access to even the remotest cities and towns in our country. To achieve this, we are introducing our first initiative towards empowering rural women – ‘Paytm AshaKiran’. With this initiative, we aim to help women to understand the financial services sector and become self-reliant, to be a part of India’s mainstream economy. This programme would support and educate these women as they take their first steps towards financial inclusion.”

Last year, Paytm Payments Bank launched ‘Paytm Ka ATM’ outlets across India that allows customers to open savings accounts and deposit or withdraw money. These specially branded outlets are playing a key role in offering banking services to smaller cities and towns by ensuring customers find it easy to locate an access point near them.

Paytm Payments Bank aims to build a new business model in the banking industry that is focused on bringing financial services to 500 million un-served or underserved consumers across India.

Paytm Founder and CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma owns a majority stake in the company, and One97 Communications Ltd owns the remaining share. The Bank has P Vijayabhaskar – Ex-Executive Director, RBI; Ash Lilani - Managing Partner and co-founder of Saama Capital and G.S. Sundararajan – EX-Managing Director at the Sriram Group as Independent Directors.