Banking access point should not be more than 5 kms: Nandan Nilekani-led panel on digital payments

Mumbai: Banks need to ensure that no user is more than 5 kms away from a banking access point and if such areas are found, these must be considered ‘shadow areas’ and a local vendor be made a banking correspondent (BC) as he deals in money and stays there, said the Nandan Nilekani-led panel on deepening digital payments.

The report said that in the recent expansion of banking access under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) scheme, an account was opened for each household in a bank. Since, the post office and cooperative banks were not a part of the scheme at that time, the account was opened at a branch that could be far off even though the individual might have had an account in the post office or the cooperative bank.