Modi pitches for mobile banking, Jaitley for digital payment

Pushing for mobile banking to deal with problems arising out of demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asked the people to let their mobile phones serve as a bank branch to deal with corruption and black money.

He said the number of mobiles was four times the number of families and people should use their mobiles to make payments.

"You can download mobile applications provided by banks on your phones and I want to urge political leaders, teachers, youth to give training to people on mobile banking," he said.

Modi said demonetisation was a step to give poor people their rights.

"You know because of corruption, black money, the middle class had been exploited and poor people were devoid of their rights. I want to stop it and give poor people their due rights," he said, adding, "The trade of black money is eating into the country like termites."

"Therefore, Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes has been banned and new notes will gradually reach (people). I am short of words in thanking people who suffered problems and inconvenience (due to demonetisation) and you continued to stand with this work of honesty," he said.

Urging people to shift to new technology in order to eliminate this menace of black money and corruption, Modi asked them to make payments through their mobile phones.

"I want to seek your support. Your mobile phone is not only a mobile phone, you can convert it into your own bank and wallet. If you don't have one rupee cash even then today the technology is such that if you have money in your bank account, you can shop in the market and make payments through mobile and also you can run your business without touching cash," he said.

The prime minister said it was the need of the hour to stop the circulation of fake currency which was destroying the youth.

"Fake currency has destroyed our youth and to save my youths, it is the need of the hour to end fake currency and I want to urge you to fully support the ongoing campaign (demonetisation) to make India great," he said.

Echoing his thoughts, the government said in the Lok Sabha amid a raging debate on demonetisation, that it wanted a reduction in the use of physical currency in the economy, which should be substituted with digital money.

Responding to a question on digital payment systems, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government wanted the physical currency to come down and be substituted by digital currency. While physical currency should decline, business and commerce should prosper.

He said out of 80 crore debit cards, 40 crore were actively used at ATMs. Electronic wallets and digital transfer of funds was the future technology which the government is encouraging and has asked various state governments to contribute.

Jaitley also said a dedicated fund under depositor education and awareness fund was in place for expanding acceptance, infrastructure and conducting awareness campaign among people for a cash-less society.

Cashless society would mean less investment in handling cash, transparency in payments and check on fake currency, he said.