Andhracafe.com- Hyderabad : Andhra Bank along with State Bank of India, Jammu & Kashmir Bank will work with the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) and IIT Mumbai in a pilot project for biometric smart cards.

The smart cards targets at rural inclusion into the banking system. The rollout which will take place in the next few weeks will initially be confined to the North-East region.

The smart cards would channelise all kinds of government payments like pension, utility payments such as healthcare, crop insurance, life insurance, etc. This common infrastructure is expected to cut down the cost of delivery of these services.

These prepaid biometric smart cards, while serving as a national identification card, are also expected to serve as a centralised core banking system, thereby facilitating the purpose of a rural credit bureau.