Payments banks are predicted to change our country's poor
banking system in coming days. As majority of payment bank licensee, approved
by Reserve Bank of India are directly or indirectly related to Telecom
industries, it can be assumed that India's telecom industry can be a partner in
changing the banking landscape or banking system can be revamped by telecom
majors-owned, stripped down version of conventional banks, which are in turn
known as Payments Bank.
As per RBI norms, Payments banks have to focus on providing
basic financial services, including social security and utility bill payments,
remittance functions, and can mobilise deposits of up to Rs 1 lakh.
Payments banks differ from traditional banks, as they don't
offer any credit card or loans. Also you can keep maximum of 1 lakh rupees in
the payments bank account. Experts believe payments banks are not replacement of
traditional banks but they can be the bridge between people without banking
facilities and digital banking system, paving a way towards Digital India.
Payments banks will be better than the e-wallet systems (Citrus Pay, Ezetap,
Freecharge, Mobikwik, Citi MasterPass, Ola Money, Jio Money, HDFC PayZapp,
ICICI Pockets, JusPay Safe, PayUMoney, LIME, MoneyonMobile, MomoeXpress,
Mswipe, Oxigen, PayMate, State Bank Buddy, Vodafone M-Pesa, mRupee, ItzCash etc)
which almost offers the same except interest, ATM cards and some other facilities
like pure banking services like ATM usage, cheque book use etc. Interestingly
e-wallet business got an escalation after demonetization (banning of old Rs 500
and 1000 rupees notes), though many think digital wallet business model is not
viable.
