Fintech RapiPay plans to deploy 500,000 micro ATMs in next two years

Capital India Finance's fintech subsidiary RapiPay on Tuesday said it aims to deploy 5 lakh micro ATMs over the next two years in the country.

RapiPay, which uses a franchised retail network to provide banking business correspondents (BCs) services, has recently launched micro ATMs (mATMs) across the country.

The company said it believes that for ATM cash withdrawals, Micro ATMs are a game-changer for Indian consumers, especially the marginalised population located in tier I, II towns and rural India.

"We have been able to install over 25,000 devices within a month of its launch. RapiPay Micro ATMs are revolutionary in comparison to the conventional ATMs and offers utmost ease to the consumers enabling them to withdraw cash and do other similar banking activities at any RapiPay Saathi store without having to travel kilometres in search of an ATM," RapiPay MD & CEO Yogendra Kashyap said.

Availability of Micro ATMs, AePS (Aadhaar Enabled Payment System) and other services such as money transfer, bill and taxes payments etc with a neighbouring shopkeeper is a big saviour for consumers looking for banking and payment services in their neighbourhood, he added.

The fintech player said micro ATMs were instrumental in facilitating cash withdrawals during the current pandemic, especially for withdrawal of the government's disbursement of Rs 1.75 lakh crore into Jan Dhan accounts of workers, labourers, and farmers, among others, who were out of work and needed cash.

Citing latest the Reserve Bank of India data, it said of the 2.2 lakh ATMs in the country, only 19 per cent have been deployed in rural areas, where 62 per cent of the Indian population resides.

Besides the low penetration in rural areas, the total number of ATMs is also declining year on year.

Thus, there is growing demand and higher penetration for micro ATMs to reach the last-mile of the country and address the problems faced by the rural population in fulfilling their cash withdrawal requirement, it added.

RapiPay holds a PPI (Pre-Paid Instrument) license from the RBI.