To expedite the process of financial inclusion and to prod banks to speed up their efforts, the Reserve Bank of India has formed a special 11-member advisory committee under deputy governor KC Chakrabarty, RBI said in a release on Thursday.
Finance secretary DK Mittal, Punjab National Bank chairman and managing director KR Kamath, former deputy governor YH Malegam and former deputy managing director of ICICI Bank Nachiket Mor are among the members.
The committee will examine issues pertaining to banking delivery models, developing products and processes for urban and rural consumers currently not covered by banks. The committee will suggest appropriate regulatory framework for financial inclusion, RBI said.
The committee can invite other stakeholders such as corporate business correspondents and companies providing technology to banking for meetings, the central bank said. The committee also aims to interact with various bankers as the financial inclusion is largely bank-led.
RBI said that although banks have done significant work towards financial inclusion, the progress is slow.
?Ensuring accessible and affordable financial services in all six lakh villages in India is a herculean task and given the enormity of the task, a lot of ground needs to be covered,? RBI said.
In 2010, RBI had asked banks to submit a board-approved three-year plan for financial inclusion. It had also mandated banks to open 25% of their new branches in unbanked rural areas.
While most banks are on track in their financial inclusion mandates, the central bank deputy governor Chakrabarty had recently noted several challenges.
