Chennai:
The
Reserve Bank of India has suggested the idea of giving
each bank customer a unique identification number. When
a person becomes a bank customer for the first time, he
will be given this number. That number will identify him
even if he becomes a customer of other bank(s).
This
initiative would prevent a defaulter in one bank, from
transacting business with other banks.
To
bring about this measure, it would be necessary to get
the approval of more than one government department, particularly
the Ministry of Home Affairs. Therefore, it would be quite
some time before this measure is brought in, S Ganesh
Kumar, general manager, Reserve Bank of India, said.
Addressing
a seminar on "Payment/settlement system and digital
signature", organised here by Indian Bank, Kumar
said that the advent of technology would be good for the
customers, but a challenge for the bankers.
He
said that the RBI would like to see a system in which
funds get transferred across accounts in real time and
a customer does not need to worry about a cheque not being
honoured.
Kumar
said that the banks should pay/credit the customer's account
once he presents a cheque and it would be up to the banking
system to collect it from the person who writes the cheque.
He observed that only three per cent of all the cheques
presented are returned, all the rest are passed. But for
this "3 per cent", all cheques go through a
time-consuming process for settlement.
|