Telecom to help in financial inclusion: Sanjay Kapoor

The new regulation by the Reserve Bank for inclusion of business correspondents will provide huge opportunity for the telecom sector to work with banks to enhance financial inclusion, industry body CII said today.

"The new regulations for inclusion of Business Correspondents provide huge opportunity for telecom sector to work with banks. Telecom can work as quasi banks with 90-95 per cent pre-paid subscribers with their Zero bad debt to enhance financial delivery while best managing the cost of delivery," the Chairman of CII Telecom Committee, Sanjay Kapoor, said in an event organised by CII here.

RBI has allowed companies along with individuals, non- government organisations, cooperative societies and post offices top work as business correspondents for banks.

Telecom sector in India is turning to be an essential service that ensures smooth functioning of citizens’ daily lives and businesses, helping them become socially and financial inclusive and globally competitive, he said.

"Financial inclusion is a big and important agenda for India and telecom sector can work with banks and financial institutions in that direction. With Indian Telecom Industry’s ability to reach, scale and built-in affordability the same can be achieved faster," Kapoor added.

Telecom industry has impacted not only job creation with multiplier effect but has also brought scale sustainability in small and tiny entrepreneurial activities in the country. Home delivery is a thriving business model which rides solely on the telecom platform.

Telecom adds to business growth like telecom industry is selling more music than music industry collectively manages to sells on its own. In the future, multiple SIMs will be used to support multifarious application hitherto not imagined, he said.

Ecohing the sentiment, Huawei Tecommunication India Senior Vice President Yao Weimin said, "India jumped from dial-tone to info-tone and now to cloud computing with services and applications being delivering over the internet grid."