Every bank account to go online by March 31, orders MeitY

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) have asked all banks to enable all accounts for netbanking by March 31. The government has asked banks to mandatorily link bank accounts to the Aadhaar number in order to facilitate online transactions and digital payments. It is believed that the government has taken this decision after seeing the huge success for its BHIM app which was launched recently by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the government data, there have been 17.2mn downloads since its launch in December last year.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, IT Minister has told Times of India, "This measure will further enable the rapidly-evolving digital payments set-up in the country and will help add in a new set of consumers to the world of online transactions."

Currently, there are around 30-35% of accounts in banks which do not have linkages to Aadhaar card and netbanking. The Ministry has been working hard to digitize transactions and hence want banks to persuade people to enable netbanking for easier online transactions and digital payments. The Ministry is also working on ensuring digital safety by working on cyber security measures.

According to reports, the ministry will conduct a meeting with all banks post Holi to discuss any issues with online payments and make sure that the deadline is met. There are several debit cards that have been printed but have not yet been distributed. The government wants these cards to be distributed as soon as possible to people so that they have easier access to their money.