The
availability of and easy access to banking services for all our citizens is a
major objective of public policy. However, the harsh reality is that a large
section of our population is still unbanked/ under-banked. With a
significant penetration of mobile telephony in rural India, the mobile phone
can be leveraged to achieve the goal of financial
inclusion.
In April 2010,
the Government accepted the framework for ‘delivery of basic financial services
using mobile phones’ proposed by an Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG). The IMG
framework envisaged the opening of mobile linked ‘no-frills’ accounts, which
would be operated using mobile phones. The customers would be able to perform
five basic transactions - cash deposit, cash withdrawal, balance enquiry,
transfer of money from one mobile-linked account to another, and transfer of
money to a mobile-linked account from a regular bank account. In the IMG
framework, TRAI was requested to ensure that telecom services of adequate
quality are provided for mobile banking at reasonable charges.
In
this context, TRAI initiated a comprehensive consultation process in July 2012
with all stakeholders. Based on the comments of the stakeholders and further
analysis, the Authority has concluded the following:
(i)
Being
a ubiquitous, inexpensive, secure and convenient channel, the Unstructured
Supplementary Service Data (USSD) is an appropriate channel for mobile banking
service for financial inclusion.
(ii)
The telecom
service providers should collect charges from their subscribers for
providing the USSD channel to deliver mobile banking services.
(iii)
The
ceiling tariff for an outgoing USSD session for USSD-based
mobile banking service
shall be Rs.
1.50 per
USSD session.
(iv)
Every
telecom service provider, acting as bearer, should facilitate not only the
banks but also the authorized agents of the banks to use SMS, USSD and IVR to
provide banking services to the banks’ customers.
The maximum number of stages for
completion of a mobile banking transaction has been increased from two to five.
The Mobile Banking
(Quality of Service) (Amendment) Regulations, 2013 came into force with
immediate effect and the
Telecommunication Tariff (Fifty Sixth Amendment) Order, 2013 shall come into
force on 1st January, 2014. The Authority is of the view that these
Amendments will pave the way for achieving greater financial inclusion in the
country.
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KKP
(Release ID :100886)
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