The government may make all savings bank accounts automatically Internet-enabled by March 31, in another step to further ease the use of cashless transactions. Also, plans are afoot to provide RuPay cards to the maximum population through a mass circulation drive.

As of now, 65 per cent of bank account holders are Internet banking-enabled and 35 per cent have not not linked their accounts to Internet banking. The government wants to make these accounts Internet-enabled by March 31.

According to a Reserve Bank of India release of March 2016, the total number of savings bank accounts in 2015 was 1,170 million, as compared to 978 million in 2014.

RuPay is a card scheme launched by the National Payments Corporation of India, and was was created to fulfil the Reserve Bank of India’s move to provide a multi-purpose payment card to all citizens.

In a meeting with senior officials of his Ministry on Tuesday, the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Ravi Shankar Prasad, told them to explore all options for successful implementation of digital payments in India.

“We had an internal review meeting today to discuss and understand the whole Internet architecture of banking systems. We will soon launch a monitoring mechanism on digital payments since the mandate has now been given to us,” Prasad told BusinessLine over the phone.

The Minister said that the successful implementation of the digital payment systems would not only add transparency, but also usher in an ‘era of reducing corruption’ in the country.

Prasad also highlighted the success of Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app in the meeting and said there were 1.72 crore BHIM users since its launch in December. Since then, there have been transactions worth ₹958 crore through this app, out of which transactions worth ₹595 crore were in February only.

According to official sources, Prasad has also shown keen interest in meeting senior bankers after Holi (March 13) to understand what measures can be taken to get bank accounts that not Internet-enabled to do so.

“The Minister wants all the account holders to have Internet banking facility. Mobile numbers are provided when accounts are opened. Internet/mobile banking can be enabled directly through that number now,” a senior official said.

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