The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday directed all state level bankers’ committees to find out one district each on a pilot basis to expand the digital payments ecosystem. With a view to expanding and deepening the digital payments ecosystem, it has been decided that all state/union territory level bankers committees (SLBCs/ UTLBCs) will identify one district in their respective states/UTs on a pilot basis in consultation with banks and stakeholders, an RBI notification said. The SLBC has been constituted in April 1977, as an apex inter-institutional forum to create adequate coordination machinery in all states, on a uniform basis for development of the state. The development comes after the RBI’s policy announcement last week. “The identified district shall be allotted to a bank having significant footprint which will endeavour to make the district 100 per cent digitally enabled within one year, in order to enable every individual in the district to make/receive payments digitally in a safe, secure, quick, affordable and convenient manner,” the RBI said. This will include providing the necessary infrastructure and literacy to handle such transactions, it added. The RBI said that SLBCs/UTLBCs should endeavour to ensure that to the extent possible, districts identified are converged with the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ programme of the government. “The allotment of the identified district to a bank should be done, as far as possible, through mutual consultation and voluntary acceptance by the bank. Further, SLBC/UTLBC convenor banks are advised to monitor the progress made in this regard on a quarterly basis and report the same to concerned regional offices/ sub-offices of the RBI” it said. SLBCs and UTLBCs coordinate the activities of the financial institutions and government departments in the state/union territory under the Lead Bank Scheme. SLBC convenorship is assigned to banks for this purpose. The SLBC/UTLBC convenorship of 29 states and seven UTs has been assigned to 16 public sector banks and one private sector bank. “The digital payments ecosystem has made substantial progress on the supply or the issuance side. It must now balance through an improvement on the demand or acceptance side of the ecosystem,” said the RBI’s Committee on Deepening of Digital Payments (CDDP).
