Airtel MD urges customers to use Payments Bank accounts to limit fraud risk

Airtel MD Gopal Vittal has advised customers to open a second Airtel Payments Bank account to reduce exposure to financial fraud

Bharti Airtel’s vice chairman and managing director Gopal Vittal has written to the firm’s 390 million plus customers asking them to open an account with the telco’s Payments Bank and route daily online payments through it, which he said would prevent potential cyber or financial frauds.

 

Since most users use their primary bank account that houses their savings for every digital payment, it exposes the account to many means of conducting financial fraud, Vittal said, adding that the primary account is linked to a UPI handle or a payment app.

 

Instead, the top executive has proposed that its consumers park a smaller amount of money in their Airtel Payments Bank accounts and use that account for transactions.

 

“Our model in the bank is simple. It is primarily for payments. That’s why we want you to put a very small amount of money into this bank. After all, unlike other banks, we don’t lend so we don’t need a large balance from you. And even this small balance earns interest. So exposing only the Airtel Payments bank for all your digital payments simply means that even if you make a mistake, you don’t lose your hard earned money,” Vittal told customers in a letter sent on Thursday.

 

India’s first payments bank licence holder, Bharti Airtel launched the Airtel Payments Bank in January 2017. It became a scheduled bank in January 2022. Airtel Payments Bank currently has over 100 million monthly transacting users across platforms. The bank offers a 1.5 per cent interest rate on balances up to ₹1 lakh and 6.5 per cent interest rate on balances above that limit.

 

Vittal’s pitch to customers comes at a time when digital users are facing an onslaught of digital scams, fraud and digital arrests.

 

“I know so many innocent customers who have had to deal with the devastating impact of such crimes. What is more, they come with ever more ingenious enticements, fake parcel deliveries, fraudulent links to win some money, fear of a digital arrest and more,” he said.

 

Airtel recently launched an inbuilt service that provides instant alerts on spam calls and messages using an Al model, while blocking fraudulent links even if users click on them by mistake.