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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday released the guidelines on establishment of digital banking units (DBUs) after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech for fiscal 2022-2023, had announced setting up of 75 DBUs in 75 districts to commemorate 75 years of independence of the country.
DBU is a specialised fixed point business unit or hub housing certain minimum digital infrastructure for delivering digital banking products and services as well as servicing existing financial products and services digitally in self-service mode at any time, all year round, the RBI said.
Commercial banks (other than RRBs, payment banks and LABs) with past digital banking experience are permitted to open DBUs in tier 1 to tier 6 centres, unless otherwise specifically restricted, without having the need to take permission from the RBI in each case, the central bank added.
As per the RBI, each DBU must offer certain minimum digital banking products and services. Such products should be on both liabilities and assets side of the balance sheet of the digital banking segment. Digitally value-added services to conventional products would also qualify as such. DBUs are expected to migrate to more structured and custom-made products, from standard offerings by use of its hybrid and high-quality interactive capabilities, it said.
The services include saving bank accounts under various schemes, current account, fixed deposit and recurring deposit account, digital kit for customers, mobile banking, internet banking, debit card, credit card, and mass transit system cards, digital kit for merchants, UPI QR code, BHIM Aadhaar and point of sale (PoS).
Other services include making applications for and onboarding of customers for identified retail, MSME or schematic loans. This may also include end-to-end digital processing of such loans, starting from online application to disbursal and identified government sponsored schemes that are covered under the national portal.
Digital services include cash withdrawal and cash deposit only through ATM and cash deposit machines respectively without physical cash acceptance or disbursal across counters, passbook printing, statement generation, transfer of funds (NEFT/IMPS support) and updation of KYC and other personal details.
