Payment banks are a new phenomenon in India and consumers are watching curiously how it shapes up and whether it creates any sizable challenge for the old banks.
Airtel payment bank is the first payment bank started in India. A handsome interest rate of 7.25% looks promising.
But the downsides are 0.65% charge on cash withdrawal and 0.5% charges to transfer money to any non airtel account.
Nevertheless there are good offers on bill payments etc.
Overall you can look at it for two purposes: 1. availing discounts on payments - particularly if you have airtel broadband or mobile. 2. If you want to keep some money as a deposit for long term with a good interest rate like 7.25%(it’s not a deposit actually, I call it so because withdrawals attract charges as mentioned above, hence you may not actually withdraw that frequently.)
Prior to trying out airtel payment bank, I had a very good account opening experience with DBS Digibank - which is not a payment bank but a regular bank with a distinction of being paperless. DBS Digibank account opening was painless and it actually went as per the laid out procedure.
Was expecting the same with airtel payment bank. But that wasn’t to be. Overall over last 2 weeks I am still trying to open the bank account. Yes, a wallet account(on which there is no interest) is easy to open. But converting it into a payment bank account is something I have not been able to achieve till now. Following is a saga of my experiments so far:
Went to an airtel shop. "You want bank a/c? Well that is already activated for your number sir", said the salesmen. Just chose to trust them till I realized when adding amount that it has still not been converted to a bank account.
Went back and told them this story. They struggled and tried to do things for about half an hour and couldn’t figure out anything. They said, we’ll fix it and call you. Till date they are yet to call back.
In the mean time tried the customer service on phone, only to realize that there is no one to talk in person. There are only pre-defined options.
Tried their email service. Got a response after a few days, just echoing back the issue itself. "Your account is a wallet account. Please go to nearest shop to convert it to bank account etc."
Then decided to change the shop and went to some other shop. This person looked more confident. He asked me to make a deposit of Rs 100 and took my biometrics etc and said it’s all done and I should receive a confirmation sms in 4 hours.
Till date no SMS received and the account is still not converted. Above guy does not answer the phones now. May be I have to go and follow up, but don’t know what poor fellow will do if the back end systems are at fault.
So as yet, this is a story of a "not yet opened bank account" with India’s first payment bank.