The Tamil Nadu Power Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (TNPF and IDCL), wholly owned by the Government of Tamil Nadu, has seen a four-fold increase in new deposits up to 100 crore during the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown period, thanks to the launch of its online services.
The company is registered with RBI as a non-banking financial company. It mobilizes funds through various fixed deposit schemes and provides financial assistance to infrastructure projects.
“We launched the online services from March 20 which could be accessed through a web portal and our Android app. Even though it was a soft launch, it has been a huge hit among consumers through word of mouth. In the offline mode we collected ₹25 crore and now we have seen a huge jump through online,” said a senior official.
Through online services customers can open new deposits, renew deposits, update contact details, nominee details, submit tax forms etc.
“We have seen about 97,000 transactions being done online. We have also introduced video KYC,” the official said.
He also said because of the launch of online services the company has been able to attract deposits from dozens of other states.
“Now a customer can open deposits within five minutes and renew a deposit within a minute,” the official said.
He said that with banks lowering deposit rates, the rates offered by Tamil Nadu Power Finance are 2-3 per cent higher than the banks. For senior citizens, the deposit rate is 8.75 per cent for 3-year deposits.
As of September 12 , 2019, the company had approximately 10,02,310 crore deposits, including government schemes. Of these, Active Retail (individuals and trusts) deposits amounted to 1,26,142 and were worth 5,526 crore.
The official said that senior citizens account for 34% of their deposit base and that one of the key challenges is that some of them are not tech-savvy and unable to use the online facility.
The company is planning two initiatives to address this challenge.
“One of them is an Interactive Voice Response or IVR facility which we will launch in a week. The other one we are considering is door step services for a fee,” the official said.
The company is planning to launch a Chatbot facility.
