Making digital paymentsIn a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of State for Finance Dr Bhagwat Kisanrao Karad informed that nearly 72 per cent of financial transactions of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) are now done through digital channels.
Furthermore, customers active on digital channels having doubled from 3.4 crore in FY2019-20 to 7.6 crore in FY2020-21.
The Minister stated, however, that the license for banking is given by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and RBI has informed that it is not considering a separate licensing category for digital banks at present.
The Minister further enumerated a number of steps that have been taken to facilitate digital banking including enhanced access to mobile banking and Internet banking has been enabled through an increase in the PSB average for the number of services offered (43), customer-friendly features (135) and regional languages available on the customer interface, end-to-end automated digital lending, digital retail loan request initiation, etc.
He also highlighted the role of various steps of the governments such as Jeevan Pramaan initiative for pensioners, PSBloansin59minutes.com, Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) platform among others which have facilitated a marked shift towards digital channels.
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