YES Bank Ties Up With Maharashtra To Onboard Fair Price Shops As BCs

The Maharashtra government has partnered with private sector lender YES Bank, under its e-PDS State programme, to onboard fair price shops (FPS) as Business Correspondent Agents.

“YES Bank will onboard close to 40 per cent of all fair price shops in Maharashtra, spanning 12 districts such as Palghar, Thane, Pune, Kolhapur, Latur,” the lender said in a release on Tuesday, adding that this will cover more than 20,000 ration shop owners and over 70 lakh citizens.

As part of the initiative, the lender will engage fair price shops to provide banking services such as small-value cash deposits into any bank account, including domestic remittances and withdrawal from any bank account via Aadhaar-enabled payment system.

Such shops will also be able to collect digital payments through Aadhaar-enabled payments for ration, and will also offer value-added services such as bill payments and mobile recharges.

“The joint initiative will help Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana users who have a card but do not necessarily have access to PoS machines or ATMs to easily access funds from their bank accounts to buy daily essentials with a simple biometric authentication,”the lender further said.