Dr Mahesh Dutt Bali
Post demonetization and further to restrictions on cash transactions, people are now gradually shifting to digital financial transactions. As per Government of India’s initiatives on digitalization, various DIGIDHAN Melas are being organized at various cities selected by GOI and Jammu is one of the city where such Mela was organized for awareness cum demonstration on cashless transactions and assistance in training for digital handholding.
Keeping pace with the demand, the banking industry has also geared up and has come up with various technologically driven digital products. In order to popularize the digital products, the banks are creating awareness among the public through Financial Literacy Camps being organized at different locations. For this purpose, the Banks have hired the services of their retired officers as Financial Literacy Counselors. To meet the challenge, Banks have also positioned themselves by deploying tech – savvy employees in each branch. The primary role of such tech – savvy employees is to educate the customers and give them on – location hands on sessions for using digital products for their daily transactions.
What is digitalization – For a common man, Digitalization is a facility provided to customers to do banking and e-commerce at their own “ease and comforts” by the use of variety of digital products like Debit / Credit Cards, Internet Banking, SMS Banking, Mobile Banking, e-statement, Cash Management Services, POS Machines and many more. To facilitate Mobile Banking many Apps such as UPI, BHIM etc have also been launched in the recent past. Apart from Government of India’s motive of bringing maximum population under digital mode of financial transactions, these services are also helpful for the customers as well as for the Banks. By shifting the customers to Digital channels, customer’s footfall in the Bank Premises can be checked and the spared Bank Staff can be deployed for exploring and marketing more business.
Common Digital Products and their uses are ATMs – for Cash dispensation, Balance Inquiry, Mini Statement, Fund Transfer, Bill Payment; Net Banking – Account View, Money Transfer, Bill Payment, Account Statement, RTGS, NEFT, Payment of Govt. dues; Debit Cards and Credit Cards are used in ATMs, POS Machines at merchant establishments / petrol pumps. The Debit Cards works on the principle of Buy Now Pay Now where Credit Cards function on the principle of Buy Now Pay Later; Mobile Banking – Account View, Money Transfer, SMS banking, Bill Payment, NEFT, Missed Call facility.
Mobile Wallet is the latest in digital banking and is used to purchase products from any person or store across the globe. Online wallet serves as a virtual account that holds money online. Users of wallet can make payments by using the money stored in the wallet instead of using a credit or debit card or net banking which means making payments and wallet to wallet transfers without sharing the sensitive credentials like IBS password or debit / credit card details etc.
Other digital products in use are Kiosks, Point of Sale Machines, E-statements, RTGS, NEFT, ECS, Cash Deposit Machines a self service and an easy way for deposit of cash in Bank account, Auto Debit Mandate Facility under CMS for corporate customers and organizations.
Use of Debit and Credit Cards at POS machines and for e-commerce transactions also makes the customers eligible to earn award points. The customer earns one reward point on every spent of Rs 100.00 and each reward point is equivalent to Rs 0.25. The redemption of reward points is easy and one can use them for recharging mobile, D2H or any further shopping.
There are security threats to the usage of Digital Products. Impersonation – is when a fraudster steals information and then poses as a genuine user to do transaction using stolen details and password. SIM Swapping – SIM Swap occurs when a fraudster first collect the user’s information and use it to get his mobile phone SIM card blocked, and obtain a duplicate one. The mobile operator deactivates the genuine SIM card, which was blocked, and issues a new SIM to the fraudster who then generates one time password using stolen information. Therefore, one should take certain precautionary measures while using digital products such as to download apps only from approved sources i.e. Google Play Store, Apple’s Play Store etc.; use antivirus service for protecting the smart phones from malware, spyware and malicious apps; Never do banking transactions on public Wi – Fi.
(The author is a Retired Banker)
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