RBI panel seeks more pvt banks involvement for financial inclusion

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has called for more involvement of private sector banks for extending financial services in the un-banked areas of the country.

An high level committee of the central bank headed by deputy governor Usha Thorat has set the target of providing financial services to every villages by March 2011. The central said private sector banks should involve themselves more actively by bringing in their expertise in strategic planning and leveraging on information technology.

The lead banks of a district has also been asked to ensure that private sector banks are more closely involved in the lead bank scheme while drawing up and in implementing the annual credit plans.

 

The committee has recommended that a sub-committee of the District Consultative Committee to draw up a road map to provide banking services in any form to every village with a population of over 2000 at least once a week on regular basis by March 2011.

"In states where the banking penetration is better, the date may be suitably advanced," the committee said.

Noting that large sections of rural population and urban poor still do not have access to banking facilities,

With about 109,000 villages with population over 2,000 out of 600,000 villages with 47,000 branches of scheduled commercial banks in rural and semi urban centres, the committee has noted banking penetration in several parts of the country is still limited which has also inhibited the development of payment system in such parts.

The committee has asked the state governments to ensure road and digital connectivity to all centres where penetration by the formal banking system is required.

RBI also suggested state governments should expedite use of IT solutions for disbursal of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and social security payments and extend support to banks in the recovery of their dues.

The committee has also suggested for simplifying Know Your Customer (KYC) guidelines for opening bank account

for small value accounts where outstanding balances at any time do not exceed Rs 50,000 and the total transactions do not exceed Rs 2 lakh in a year on the basis of only a photograph of the account holder and self certification of address.

"Banks having the largest presence in each city with more than one million population may take the leadership in convening a meeting of bankers and allocating responsibility for various wards to different banks, to ensure that all urban households have easier access to banking services," the committee said.