The Reserve Bank of India is pushing for account number portability in the banking sector. RBI’s deputy governor S.S. Mundra told a conference in Mumbai that banks should work towards allowing customers to move seamlessly between banks without having to change their account numbers. Mundra said technological innovation and linking accounts to Aadhaar have made it easier to move towards account number portability. The prospect of an aggrieved customer silently moving his or her account to another bank in the near future has become very real, he added and told the Indian Banks’ Association to start working on this soon. He also hinted that RBI may come out with guidelines on customer protection to limit their liability in case of fraud in electronic banking transactions. At present, bank account number portability is not prevalent anywhere in the world.
