Jana SFB ties up with two co-op banks to offer digital, payment services

Jana Small Finance Bank (Jana SFB) will provide its digital infrastructure and payments services to HCBL Co-operative Bank and Mysore Merchants Co-operative Bank under the bank sponsorship programme.

Under the bank sponsorship programme, the RBI has permitted Core Banking Solution (CBS) enabled co-operative banks to issue ATM cards or ATM-cum debit cards to its customers in association with the sponsor bank.

Jana Small Finance Bank signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with HCBL Co-operative Bank, Lucknow and Mysore Merchants Co-operative Bank, Mysore to provide digital infrastructure and payments services to the respective banks under the bank sponsorship programme of the RBI, Jana SFB said in a release on Thursday.

With this tie-up, HCBL Co-operative Bank and Mysore Merchants Co-operative Bank will be able to extend ATM, point of sale (PoS) and e-commerce services to its customers.

This is for the first time that Jana SFB has tied up with a co-operative bank to provide IMPS services to facilitate seamless payment options to its customers, it said.

These associations will boost digital transactions enabling more rural customers to come under the gamut of financial inclusion in true sense. Jana Small Finance Bank's digital capability will now be available to all its partner banks, said the lender.

"Our endeavour is to build an ecosystem by providing smarter and simpler banking solutions for the underserved so that the benefits of digital banking can reach the masses," Ajay Kanwal, MD and CEO of Jana Small Finance Bank, said.

The bank will provide RuPay debit card to its customers in association with Jana SFB, A K Srivastava, CEO, HCBL Co-operative Bank, said.

He said the bank is also working to introduce IMPS and e-commerce transactions for its customers.

Bengaluru-based Jana SFB was one of the 10 financial institutions which had received in-principle approval from the RBI for a small finance bank in 2015.

The bank received its final banking licence in April 2017. It commenced operations from July 2018.