The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cautioned that it would intervene in case the banks don?t pass on the the benefits of technological advancements in payment to the users by way of reasonability in charges and transparency in framework.
?An important issue relates to the need to pass or regulatory interventions will be the order of the day. How can one expect a customer to be convinced about as to why intra-bank transactions are more expensive than inter-bank transactions? Can we ourselves be convinced that charges can still be levied on ad-valorem basis when the inputs required to be entered are the same? Should proceeds of collection continue to be remitted using drafts or paper modes if both the bank branches are enabled to send and originate electronic transactions, just because the same was not asked for? ?? asked G Padmanathan , chief general manager, department of payment and settlementat while inaugurating the second payment systems summit organized by IBA and Finsight in Mumbai on Friday. According to him RBI has also set up a state of the art data centre where to the critical payment system applications like RTGS, CFMS and PDO-NDS have already been migrated. Back-up infrastructure for NEFT and NFS is also being created at the data centre which provide the requisite redundancies to assure their uninterrupted availability at all times.
?We are also in the process of looking at a number of other options like. Hosting the data of all MICR-CPCs ata central location which can facilitate a single point of download for the member banks to view the balances held across various clearing locations by leveraging the core banking solution of the bank managing the CPC, conceptualizing and implementing settlement finality with an appropriate mechanism to take care of failure-to-settle situations,?? he revealed..
Drawing attention the number of online frauds in the country which has not yet reached alarming levels. Padmanathan said the regulator is ahead of the curve on this issue. ?With the number of credit card issuances and usage increasing by the day, it is necessary to bring credibility to the system even at the cost of additional investments to assure security,?? he said. Urging the banks to increase the number of transaction on high-tech platform Padmanathan said though it is quite credit worthy that that more than 55,000 branches are presently RTGS and NEFT enabled, the daily volume of transactions handled by these products are still very low.
Banks have the responsibility to augment and put in place the necessary framework at the processing centres for straight-through-processing, with adequate infrastructure.