Jaitley added efforts would be made to introduce mobile banking on all kinds of phones. He said this mission mode programme was a marked shift from earlier effort where only opening of account was the focus of the financial inclusion drive.
“The objective is to have two accounts in each household. There are many elements of a new programme in it. The unit of contact will be a person, not a village,” Jaitley said after a meeting with the heads of public sector banks (PSBs) and financial institutions.
The Financial Inclusion Mission has two phases starting from August 15 this year. The first phase will get over by August 14, 2015, and the second by August 14, 2018. Most of the activities will be done in phase–I and insurance and pension would be covered in phase–II. There would be state-level and district-level committees to monitor the progress under the plan.
Currently, financial inclusion and the reach of the banking system extends to about 58-59 per cent of the country’s population.
The finance minister also said there was no pull factor in the earlier campaign where people could demand access of banking facilities in their villages. He added that under the new Mission, there would be awareness generation amongst the people so that they can ask for opening of their bank accounts by the banks and the business correspondents. He said in the past, the Know Your Customer (KYC) process was very cumbersome. This has now been eased and e-KYC facility introduced.