The World Bank Findex Survey (2012) says only 35% of Indian adults had access to a formal bank account and 8% borrowed formally in the last 12 months. Only 2% of adults used an account to receive money from a family member living in another area and 4% used an account to receive payment from the government. In another report, prepared by research firm Juxt, titled ‘India Mobile Landscape (IML) 2013’ it has been revealed that India has 55.48 crore mobile users. More than 29.8 crore or about 54% of these device owners are in rural areas compared to 25.6 crore in cities and towns.The Reserve Bank of India wants to leverage this mobile penetration and it has accorded in-principle approval to set up a payment system where all you need is a mobile phone to withdraw money from an ATM even without having a bank account. Now banks are working towards increasing their ATM network so that this facility is available to larger number of people. K.R. Kamath, CMD, Punjab National Bank and chairman of IBA, said by 31 March 2014, all public sector bank branches will have an ATM machine and that will make increase penetration and thereby enable more people to have access to cash through this system. Ho hoped this will go a long distance in providing easy access to transferred money to individuals who do not have bank accounts. The idea is that there are lot of unsatisfied people who do not have bank accounts and don’t have cash withdrawal facility. Meanwhile, IndiaPost has a scheme in association with BSNL where money can be transferred from one post office to another across the country. Once the money to be transferred is deposited in the post office by a sender, a secret code is sent to the recipient’s mobile phone, who needs to visit a post office and show the code and an address proof to get the money from the post office.
RBI governor Raghuram Rajan too as said there is a great opportunity for banks and telecom service providers to come together to deliver mobile banking services of all kinds in a seamless and secure manner to their customers. He said in the next few months, the central bank will accelerate the dialogue between key players. According to the perceived system, it will work like a mobile transfer, where a sender needs to have a bank account. The sender deposits the money at a mobile shop from where a code is sent to the recipient who needs to go to the mobile shop and provide the code to receive the money. In this case a separate system would be prepared in tie up with mobile companies and the recipient would be able to withdraw the money from the ATM by punching the code in the machine. Initially, the sender will require a bank account. In the second stage even the sender may not be required to have a bank account.
