This is certainly an interesting development. In fact a recent report in BBC
added more points by stating that no one could dupe this and already such
verification systems are being used by some non-prophet organizations in
making the micro credit facilities available to illiterate women.
Vetri.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pamnani" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>; "Secretariat"
<[email protected]>; "Prasanna Pincha" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2009 2:14 PM
Subject: [AI] Plastic is out, fingerprints are in
Dear Friends,
Last year when we were drafting the Banking guidelines there was a lot of
discussion on this group on facility of cheques and how banks will allow
the visually challenged to use cheques when there is no system of
verification. At that time I had considered all the arguements and with
the help of some deduction and taking into consideration alot of issues it
was decided to let the Banks work thinks out for themselves and not
constrain ourselves. At that time
Finger print recognition technology was in experimental stage but was
definitely there.
I have to report to this group that after the IBA guidelines many branches
of some Banks have started accepting cheques with thumb impression-I dont
know how they do it but they do. Today I have heard of one branch starting
some biometric verification. So in a way its nice to have pushed the Banks
along.
I am sharing a newspaper report from Business Standard which I had read
more than a month ago and I dont know why nobody posted it to this group.
Anyway it does not really affect us but the technology once available to
one section of public can easily be availble to us. Its so very important
that I had to share it with this group .
Subject: Plastic is out, fingerprints are in
http://www.business-standard.com/india/printpage_sam.php?autono=348623tp=
Plastic is out, fingerprints are in
Niladri Bhattacharya / Mumbai February 11, 2009, 0:50 IST
Smart cards have been outsmarted as the country's largest lender, State
Bank of India (SBI), has come up with a card-less transactions that
requires only
an account holder's fingerprints.
The bank has decided to dispense with cards to lower the cost of
transactions, particularly for the disbursement of social security
pensions and wages under
the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
Under the new system, which is been implemented across the country, a
point of sale (POS) machine, comprising bio-metric details of account
holders would
go to a particular village where the bank's customers can withdraw or
deposit funds using the fingerprint-based method.
Earlier, each account holder was given a card with a magnetic strip that
was swiped at the POS machine before any transaction. The price of a smart
card
depended on its memory. For instance, 4GB cards cost Rs 75, whereas it
costs Rs 140 for a 32GB card.
Since the inception of the NREGS in 2004, SBI had disbursed around 1.6
million smart cards across the country, before deciding to shift to the
new system
a couple of months ago. "In the last two months, we have opened more than
400,000 accounts but we have not disbursed any smart cards thereby saving
close
to Rs 3 crore," said S Mukhopadhyay, deputy general manager in the bank's
rural banking department.
What has also helped the bank roll out the new system is the fact that 2
per cent of the no-frills account holders stepped out of their villages.
Since
most of the account holders only accessed the bank to receive the pension
or the NREGS payment, a banking correspondent could easily go with a POS
machine
at periodic intervals to help them complete their transactions.
"These villagers do not require inter-operability, which a smart card
offers, since most of them use their accounts only once a month to avail
of the NREG
scheme, practically the accounts remained dormant for the rest of the
month. Therefore, it was not cost-effective for the banks to carry on with
cards,"
an SBI executive said.
Other banks, however, have not shifted to card-less transactions.
"Different banks use different technologies and we are sticking to a
card-based system,
at least for the time being," said an executive at a public sector bank
executive. The cost-saving is not significant, added another banker
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