Small and payments bank licence window to open by month-end

The Reserve Bank of India will start accepting applications from prospective promoters of small banks and payments banks by month-end. The central bank will also allow small banks a nationwide presence as long as they lend only to small businesses and will consider allowing them to evolve into full-fledged commercial banks Stock Market Trading Tips

"We will put out guidelines on new entities called payments banks which will offer accounts to the excluded and they will use technology to link them over the last mile. Presumably, there will be an extended use of mobiles and we visualize mobile companies and companies with a large rural presence and possibly post offices coming into these payments bank licences," RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said while speaking at a microfinance conclave organized by Nabard and Sidbi here on Thursday Intraday Trading Tips 

"Similarly, we expect to licence small finance banks. We are open to the suggestion that instead of having local area banks we should allow for an all-India institution which focuses on small lending. Both the guidelines are with the government and I am hopeful that by the end of this month, we will issue the call for applications for small bank as well as payments banks," he said Nifty Trading Tips 

Making it clear that banks will have a larger role in making available financial services to the unbanked, Rajan said that complete financial inclusion would take five to 10 years. He also said, "It is important to inculcate a savings habit - the financial management habit so that they can handle money. It is only later when people learn to handle money that you expose them to credit. That is increasingly a tent of the microfinance movement," said Rajan Personal Numerology Trading Tips