Finance Minister Mrs Nirmala Sitharaman has advised banks to link all accounts with the account holders’ Aadhaar numbers by 31 March 2021. On the occasion of the 73rd Annual General Meeting of the Indian Banks’ Association, FM pressed that the banks must focus on digital transactions. She also mentioned promoting RuPay cards over others as the card network has now become global.
FM stated that Unified Payments Interface (UPI) should become a common vocabulary among banks. She added that RuPay should be the only suggestion to be made by the banks when someone is looking for a card. Since RuPay has gone global, there is no need to suggest any other card.
As of January 2020, there were more than 600 million RuPay cards issued. With the intent of further increasing the financial inclusion, Mrs Sitharaman expressed that digital transactions will be focused on going forward and non-digital ones to be discouraged.
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Speaking of the Aadhaar-seeding of bank accounts, the minister said that it should be completed by December 2020 or latest by 31 March 2021. There are many people who do not have an Aadhaar-seeded bank account.
FM also mentioned the importance of having more large banks so they can finance large projects. Many amalgamations are happening and each of the amalgamated banks needs to grow as big as SBI. Similarly, smaller finance companies, banks, and MBFCs are also necessary.
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