ICICI Bank, a leading Indian private sector bank, and Niyo, a new age fintech company announced a tie-up to issue prepaid cards to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) workers. MSMEs will now be able to get ‘ICICI

Bank Niyo Bharat Payroll Card’ powered by Visa, for their blue-collar workers.

These workers are mostly under-banked and are deprived of banking facilities.

With this, MSMEs can upload the salaries of their workers on the card, which the workers can then utilise as per their need seamlessly. The ‘ICICI Bank Niyo Bharat Payroll Card’ allows an individual to receive funds up to Rs 1 lakh into the card account. It offers convenience and safety of digital banking

to the blue-collar workforce, while providing a state-of-the-art salary disbursement solution to the employers.

Sudipta Roy, Head – Unsecured Assets, ICICI Bank said, “This partnership is yet another initiative by us to make banking products easily accessible to the underbanked population. We believe that armed with this card, workers of MSMEs will be able to enjoy the convenience and safety of digital banking.”

With this, Niyo has announced its goal of reaching 5 million blue-collar workers in the next 5 years with its flagship product Niyo Bharat. Niyo Bharat currently has over 1.7 million customers and relationships with over 7000 corporates, adding nearly 5000 customers every day.

Niyo Co-founder and CEO Vinay Bagri said, “The Niyo Bharat Digital Salary solution has the potential to bring millions of blue-collared salaried workforces into the formal economy. Our primary objective is to provide digital banking solutions for the blue-collar segment to not only foster financial inclusion but also inculcate a long-term saving habit among them.”

Any MSME can tie-up with Niyo to avail of the prepaid card. After the tie-up, cards are issued to the workers at their workplace itself while their KYC verification is done simultaneously using a biometric device. Once activated,

workers can use the card to withdraw funds at ATMs, make online transactions on e-commerce portals and make payment by swiping the card at Point of Sale

(PoS) machines.

To further facilitate the cardholders, Niyo offers a multilingual app called ‘Niyo Bharat Mobile app’. Workers can download this app from Google Play Store and register themselves. The app will enable them to transfer funds, pay bills, or do recharges online. It also allows them to block/unblock the card which provides them control of their card security. The cardholders also get a free accidental death insurance cover.