Mumbai : In order to give a further boost to the financial inclusion drives of banks, the Reserve Bank of India is planning to allow business correspondent of a bank to undertake payment services for other banks as well, Deputy Governor H R Khan said on Tuesday.
“We are now talking whether a BC (business correspondent) of one bank can do payment services for other banks, like ATMs (automated teller machines) are doing now. That convergence will provide efficiency and optimisation,” Khan said at a banking technology event organised by Confederation of Indian Industry.
The much-touted Bharat Bill Payments System, which is an integrated payment system, is expected to be operational in an year, Khan said. “We are focusing on the Bharat Bill Payment as there will be a huge market for bill payments. NPCI (National Payments Corp of India) 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.
Khan said that RBI has received seven applications to set up a platform for trade receivable for micro, small and medium enterprises. With increase in devolution to states, as recommended by 14th Finance Commission, the RBI is planning to integrate central as well state government payments through core banking solution ‘e-kuber’.
JV between banks, e-commerce
Stating that it was important to take cognisance of the fastpace growth witnessed by e-commerce companies, Khan said that the central bank was not averse to jointventures between banks and such companies. “E-commerce companies are galloping at such a fast pace, so you have totake cognisance of it….I think there is need for collaboration. E-commercesites and banks–they need to integrate in the interest of everyone,” Khansaid.
Khan, however, clarified that they had not decided on any model between thecollaboration between banks and e-commerce companies.
“Off hand, what I can say is that one will not be averse to joint ventures, but we have to see how to businessmodel works”, Khan said.