MHA bats for SMSes on bank transactions, ATM slips in Hindi

Messages on bank transactions and slips in automated teller machines (ATMs) may soon come up in Hindi, if a proposal of the home ministry is accepted by public sector banks (PSBs), as part of the efforts to popularise the language in the official business.

The home ministry’s official language department said so far there is no facility for working in Hindi language on Internet banking websites, nor there is any facility to use Hindi in mobile banking applications of PSBs. Banks must ensure that information sent to customers by emails and SMSes on bank transactions should be in Hindi, the official language department said in a recent letter to the financial services department under the Finance Ministry.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior Cabinet ministers are known for widely using Hindi in their day-to-day work. Modi had delivered his first speech at the UN General Assembly in New York in Hindi while he often speaks in Hindi while interacting with world leaders.

Banks offer various types of computerised services but the use of Hindi in the same is “not as desired” and there is no facility to get Hindi transaction slips in ATM machines, the letter said.

The Home Ministry wants the ATM machines to print slips in Hindi apart from English. It also wants option for customers to work in Hindi on Internet banking web portals.

"The quality of use of Hindi in Core Banking Systems is to be improved and in Hindi-speaking states, this work should by default be in Hindi," the letter said.

"Nationalised banks have a high interface with the people. Many letters have earlier been written to the financial services department on these issues... But discussions held with banks and checks carried out at banks reveal that even as of now on all the above-mentioned issues, action by a majority of banks is missing," the Home Ministry letter said.