At a time when the banks are grappling with cash shortage and people forced to stand in long queues outside bank and ATMs due to the demonetisation move of Union Government, the District Cooperative Bank Dehradun has come forward with a unique facility of payment through mobile SIMs for its account holders. Unlike other mobile banking facilities, this method termed ‘SIM se Pay’ does not require internet connection. The cooperative bank has tied up with the YES bank to provide this facility.
The Chairman of the district cooperative bank and senior officials of YES bank launched ‘SIM se Pay’ here on Wednesday. Incidentally the district cooperative bank is the first bank in the country to provide this facility to its customers. Addressing newsmen, the Chairman of District Cooperative Bank, K S Rana said that 85000 customers of the bank would be benefitted by the scheme. He said that most of the customers of the bank are in rural areas where the internet facility is either absent or is of poor quality and in such a situation the digital banking facility through mobile SIM would be of a great help.
The President of Indian Financial Institutions (IFI) team of YES bank, Sanjeev Pandey said that the ‘SIM se PAY’ is a unique innovation that allows any account holder to do money transfers, pay utility bills and other mobile banking services, without the need for smart phones or internet. The offering is based on a frugal “sim-sleeve” technology, in association with Taisys Technologies, who holds global patent for the same, and has implemented the same successfully in other countries including Kenya and China. He informed that the tie up with District Cooperative bank is a pilot project inspired by the Government’s digital payments drive and the bank intends to launch it in different parts of the country in near future. Pandey said that out of over 900 million mobile phones in India, only around 220 million phones are smart phones and the new innovation will cater to the large section of Indian population who remain unbanked or under banked due to lack of access to smart phones and mobile internet.
“Over the next few weeks, YES BANK will be tying up with various Co-operative banks across the country to facilitate a pan-India roll out of the product to existing bank customers. Since Co-operative and Regional Rural Banks do not have mobile banking licenses, the SIMsePAY solution will enable them to reach out to a wider range of their target audience as well,’’ he said. The bank account holder would be provided with a wafer thin sticker which can be pasted on SIM card. The sticker would install an application by which the mobile would get linked with the bank account by which one can perform many type of transactions.