RBI may allow business correspondents of one bank to do payment services of another

The central bank is also focusing on mobile banking in a big way

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is exploring the possibility of allowing the business correspondent (BC) of a particular bank to get involved in offering payment services of other banks.

“We are now talking whether a particular BC of a particular bank can do the payment services of the other bank. Like ATMs is doing whether micro ATM can be a white label ATM. That convergence will provide efficiency and optimization,” said HR Khan, deputy governor at RBI.

The other area in which RBI is focusing in a big way is mobile banking. “This assumes criticality in the context of Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana because focus is on “Jan” so Jan Dhan accounts and mobile with Aadhar back up has to be the solution going forward otherwise you can't service this 120 million accounts,” Khan said.

Jan Dhan Yojana is a scheme for comprehensive financial inclusion launched by the Prime Minister in August 2014.

Besides that Khan believes there is a huge market for bill payments. “We have this Bharat Bill Payment System. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is going to be the central operating unit and other bill aggregators and banks will join. We hope that in less than a year's time we should be up and running,” he said.

To help micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) RBI in December 2014 permitted setting up of an exchange-based trading platform to facilitate financing of bills raised by such small entities to corporate and other buyers, including government departments and PSUs. “We have receive seven applications and we are processing it,” Khan said.

According to Khan the big changer possibility will be bringing telcos and banks together. “That possibly will happen in a big way once payment bank licenses are issued. They are going to be a big game changer in the field of remittances and payment system,” he said.

RBI is also working on a proposal submitted by NPCI to connect all cash deposit machines through national financial switch.