 Good afternoon and welcome. We're coming to you from day 2 of the Fiji Symposium in Bangalore. The platform for all dialogue on financial inclusion. And with me today is the CEO of Airtel Payments Bank, Mr. Shashi Arora. Welcome, sir. Thank you. And thank you for being part of the Fiji Symposium. Pleasure. This is the first ever Fiji Symposium and it's happening in our country, India. Your thoughts on this? I would say it's a very good initiative. Fiji Symposium by ITU Ministry of Telecommunications and other bodies who have come together to put it. There are a lot of constituents involved in trying to bring financial inclusion to a reality. If we have to bring financial services and make it available in an easy and a convenient way to a billion plus Indians, then we need forums like this to get participants like us to bring forth things that need to be done from regulatory bodies like RBI, Ministry of Finance, DFS, etc. And for others to kind of bring their thoughts together so that overall we can all work together in bringing financial inclusion to a reality in India. That's great, isn't it? Could you tell us a little more about the potential of digital financial services to actually increase financial inclusion? Yep. So as per a PWC study done a couple of years ago, there are over 233 million people in India who don't have bank accounts. So if you really put it in a perspective and say that 3 fourth of the country's population doesn't have access to basic financial services and contrast it to 1.2 billion odd SIMs that are there, the gap is quite glaring. And clearly there is lots that can be done. If customers can get their recharge easily for a prepaid phone at a arms length, quite clearly they should be able to do basic banking services at a arms length. And that is what our objective from Airtel Payments Bank is to try and make it available in an easy convenient fashion. To do this a couple of things would be needed. One is that we all need to work towards bringing down the cost of operations. Because Hiderto, the reason banking services have not percolated down to the masses is because physical brick and mortar branches cost quite a deal. And the break even of an ATM for example takes about five to six years to break even. And therefore the penetration of banking outlets, penetration of ATMs has Hiderto been limited to largely to urban India. And it's to give you numbers, it's six branches or six banking outlets for lack of population in rural in comparison to 25 odd in urban India. That is the kind of gap we're talking about four is to one kind of a number gap here. And therefore to make it available, we are looking at leveraging the strengths that telecom companies like are can bring to the table. So we for instance provide prepaid recharges through one and a half million retail outlets in this country. Contrast it to the number of a lakh and 50,000 branches that commercial banks have. And therefore you're talking about a one is to 10 number. There was a Natchikit Mohr study which was done a couple of years ago before payments bank licenses were given out. It said that the number of banking outlets through which banking services are made available to the masses needs to go up 10 times. And in a literal sense, we can bring that to fruition. And that is what our goal is in that we need to use technology in a big way because without technology, there is no way A, we can bring down the cost of operations. B, make it more easily accessible to the masses. So what we are working on is a completely paperless, a branchless way of banking operations using technology as a via media and therefore keeping it completely digital and ensuring that it's available through over one and a half million retail outlets one day to the customer in his language at a stone's throw so that he finds it easier to do these basic banking operations. And what we are also doing is that a whole set of Indians today have gotten used to doing basic transactions using phones. So 40-50% would want to do it on their smartphones using an app, which is obviously easy because it can be customized, it can be made visual, it can be made intuitive. For the balance 50-60% who are on feature phones, we are making it available using USSD. So that's a format that helps him to check his balance to do his last couple of ranking transactions and do simple things like remit money back to his village, do recharges for his prepaid phone, for his DTH, etc. And therefore even pay electric city bills. So therefore all this making it available on a feature phone through USSD format in 12 Indian languages that you know is where technology helps us in taking banking to the masses. But when it comes down to say policy and regulation, what do you think are the innovations that are required around this to create an enabling environment for digital financial services? So first and foremost I would say that what has come as a big boon and well in time for payments bank like ours has been EKIC. What that does is through the UIDA linkage completely takes the paper out of the way. So today for example we open bank accounts for even less literate people in two to three minutes just by taking biometric verification through UIDA linkage. So therefore there is no POI required, no paper required, no scanning required and for the customer also it's easier because he all he has to give is a number and doesn't have to get into multiple you know filling up of multiple page forms etc. And trying to you know even even let's say signature today is not needed because the biometric verification works as a signature. So for example we have put in a cash withdrawal again through UIDA linkage which does not need a sign let's say the way used to sign a check earlier. So some of these have come in as a boon some more are needed you know all the work that NPCI is doing for example in the country whether it is providing the IMPS platform which allows for you know instant remittance of money from place A to place B. The UPI interface that they have built and again you know a lot of transactions whether at a P2P level and going forward at a P2M level you know will become easier and that's another you know thing that innovative thing that the country is doing. What we're looking forward to now going forward is also Bharat QR code because you know we heard in some of the working groups earlier that it offline merchants obviously it makes it easier by scanning to make payments easier but by incorporating it in let's say electricity bills etc. It makes you know correct because today a customer has to struggle to find out where to go to pay his electricity bill payments and we have seen that it's one of the first financial services related tasks that he wants to do. So that it makes that easier and therefore there are a whole set of these innovations and you know removal of regulatory hurdles which kind of makes you know access of financial services easy and brings us closure to making financial inclusion the reality in India. And just coming down to the next steps in terms of ATL payments banks to support digital financial services what what can we have in store from ATL payment bank. So what we have enabled till now is access of basic been banking services through 500,000 outlets so a customer today can you know walk in into any of our retail outlets open a bank account through Aadhar verification he can do cash deposit he can do cash withdrawal he can do remittance so he can send money you know back to his village etc. We are going further on this we will enable shortly payment of electric city bill payments you know today he can do it on his app but we're trying to make it even simpler so that he can do it at you know any of these outlets going forward we are integrated with the UPI system like I said so therefore making payments at you know a grocer or any other you know bakery outlet etc. who accepts UPI and you know is easier typically we have seen that the customer journey begins with remittances which is you know the first thing for our urban migrant for example to send money back home. He graduates to doing online recharges for his prepaid phone etc. He then graduates to electric city bill payments so these are the steps that you know we are seeing and then comes you know payment at offline merchants etc. which is what things like Bharat QR code and our integration with NPCI would help make it easier. Great thank you so much thank you so much for being part of the PG symposium.