31/12/2019 - S & T

PLEASE REVIEW

KEY POINTS

·        As a larger part of the RBI’s policy to promote digital inclusion, making online remittances through National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) facilities in savings bank accounts free from January 2020 is indeed significant.

·        The RBI reinforces the easing of the digital payment foothold with several continuing collaborative measures that can evolve a robust and seamless payment ecosystem.

·        Enhancing access to financial touch points and reducing the cost of access have been the twin drivers of digital inclusion.

Spurt in digital infrastructure

·        Moving beyond just setting up full-fledged bank branches, banks have started expanding the base of alternate electronic delivery channels at a much faster pace, after mobile connectivity and network, and Internet services were made accessible and affordable to people at the bottom of the pyramid.

·        The number of basic savings bank deposit accounts quickly increased due to the rollout of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), adding mass of new customers.

Financial awareness

·        In order to make FI work to ensure that the benefits of inclusion reaches the intended target group of the society, seminal changes need to be introduced in the spread of financial and digital literacy and credit counselling. While many stakeholders have been doing sporadic work, they are not coordinated enough to optimise its effectiveness.

·        Inadequate institutional efforts to disseminate financial awareness at the grassroots level are keeping even financially connected masses (those having bank accounts and debit cards) away from the formal financial system. Adequately equipping and empowering institutions engaged in disseminating comprehensive literacy programmes will be essential to unleash the potentiality of the huge financial and digital infrastructure built and designed to sub serve FI.

·        It is the right time to accelerate literacy campaigns ,particularly when digital culture is spreading fast with introduction of thd GST, FASTags and other online utilities of daily use.

·        Right synchronisation of comprehensive literacy efforts with the evolving payment and settlement ecosystem should be able to take India close to the end-state objectives of FI by 2030, by when the sustainable goals of UN are to be achieved.

Kindly review

Please review.

Please review.