Synd Bank takes e-way for financial inclusion

Manipal-headquartered public sector lender, Syndicate Bank, is taking electronic way to extend the financial inclusion project to the nooks and corners of Karnataka. 

The Bank is all set to launch a smart card based project on a pilot basis in three districts of north Karnataka during this week. With this the bank aims to take the banking to the doorsteps of 3 lakh farmers in the state eventually. 

Syndicate Bank is the lead bank to implement this project with two other banks including State Bank of India and Canara Bank. The project will be launched by the chief secretary of the state government, Sudhakar Rao at the state level bankers’ committee meeting on October 22. 

George Joseph, chairman and managing director, Syndicate Bank said the project is part of the bank’s financial inclusion project. It will employ business correspondents who will go to rural areas with a handheld device and conduct almost all banking transactions at the farmers’ doorsteps. 

“To begin with, we are launching this project in three districts of Chitradurga, Bellary and Bagalkot in coordination with two other banks and government of Karnataka. The smart card will enable farmers to avail government pension, social security payments, National Rural Employment Guaranteee Programme (NREGP) payments, wages among others. The project will cover the entire state in phased manner,” Joseph told Business Standard. 

The technology is provided by Bangalore-based Integra Micro Systems (P) Ltd. The bank has adopted financial inclusion solutions based on iMFAST (Integra’s Mobile Financial Applications Secure Terminal) system. 

The iMFAST system consists of portable terminal to handle transactons in the field, smart cards at the hands of farmers and handheld device to read the card with business correspondents, backed software for authentication, transaction handling in online mode, connectivity to the bank servers. 

iMFAST authenticates users of the system based on live finger print detection. The card can store 3 finger prints of the account holder and the central authentication server has provision to store finger prints of all 10 fingers of each person. 

Under this project, a customer is given Smart Card as a replacement to bank’s passbook. It has identity, transaction store, and bank biometric data. Business correspondent in a village carries out transactions for customers (deposit/withdrawal/transfer of cash) in a secured manner using an iMFAST terminal on behalf of the bank. 

In addition, enrolment and personalisation software and MIS report generation system are provided as standard components of the system. 

The smart card will facilitate various applications like opening of no frills savings accounts, loan accounts, revolving general purpose credit, government beneficiary schemes, fund transfer, remittance, recurring deposits, joint accounts, insurance premium collection and utility bill collection among others.