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As banks in India move towards increasing digital banking, they must handle the man behind the machine to facilitate better transition, according to the RBI.
“The focus has been on alternative channels and digitisation of banking and move (banking) from assisted to self-service mode… But the fact remains in the Indian context that despite us moving in the Jet-plane age, we have the bullock cart as well. We have different market segments and have to look at the hand behind the machine as well…,” said HR Khan, RBI Deputy Governor, while inaugurating Dena Bank’s self service branch banking.
Dena Bank plans to open 200 branches by 2017.
Khan said the RBI is focused on expanding more ATMs and use those for not just cash withdrawals, but also host of other functions like remittances, PPI, etc.
“There should also be an official to explain the functions and features to customers…We have customers, particularly our generation customers who need some handholding. We need the blend of software with human-ware…Once people get used to the new channels and start trusting the security,” he said raising concerns about cyber security as well.
ATMs
Another thing we are looking at is cash deposit machines, we can connect them to NFS (National Financial Switch) such that any other bank’s customer can use it,” Khan added.
On the interchange fees, he said it is being discussed at the bank level and we have allowed them (to charge more). “We need to remember that any technology has to be profitable and if one cannot recover the cost then there is no incentive to set up the infrastructure. So there needs to be a balance between convenience and profit.”
Payment and Small finance bank licence
On the announcement of the final list of payment and small finance bank licences, the deputy governor said, “We are processing the applications and the announcement will be out soon.”
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