Govt. asks banks to provide mobile-banking to all by Mar 31

In a further push to promote a less-cash economy, the government has asked all the banks to provide mobile banking facility to all customers by March 31, a senior government official said on Wednesday.

“What we have asked the banks to do is to enable all customers who have mobiles for mobile banking… we are asking the banks to run a nationwide campaign up to March 31 to ensure that every customer who has a mobile phone is enabled for mobile banking,” Electronics and IT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said.

“…earlier mobile banking wasn’t such a priority. And therefore, many customers may not have said they want mobile banking services. But today, they want it… This is to ensure that whoever wants to do mobile banking but has not been enabled, should be enabled by March 31,” she said, adding that the banks have been asked to enable this “over the air”.

Ms. Sundararajan said any customer who accesses UPI or BHIM app should automatically be enabled for mobile banking “because it means they want mobile banking.”

The Ministry for IT has recently been given the mandate of spearheading the NDA-government’s drive to push digital payments. Prior to this, NITI Aayog was made responsible for promotion of digital transactions.

On Tuesday, the first meeting on the issue was held at the ministry, chaired by IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Mr. Prasad will also hold a meeting with all the bankers post Holi to ensure that targets are met.

Speaking at a Facebook event, the Secretary added that the government would roll out a programme in the coming weeks to bring more women into the start-up ecosystem by offering them mentoring and capital for setting up business.

According to a report released today by Facebook on Wednesday, India is missing out on a potential 1.55 crore new businesses and 6.4 crore additional jobs by not addressing the challenges faced by women who want to start a business.

The study, conducted by Development Economics and YouGov on behalf of Facebook, found at least four in five women respondents saying they would like to start a business.

In India, the most commonly cited reason that prevented women from setting up their business is the constraint of family responsibilities or commitments (38%), lack of access to finance (29%), worry over personal financial security (30%), and having an idea but not knowing where to get started (30%).

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Source:The hindu