Bank of Maharashtra (BoM), a small public sector Indian bank and lender, reportedly topped the list of all the country’s banking institutions for digital transactions performed in December of last year. This, according to India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity).
Meity data shows that BoM’s overall score was 77 and reached 102.70% of the target set by the India’s government via an initiative to encourage digital payments in the $2.6 trillion economy and general shift towards cashless transactions.
Yes Bank, HDFC Bank and payments-focused bank Fino recorded an overall score of 76. Fino had reached the top of the list in July 2019. The bank’s performance is considered “good” and remains steady despite concerns about the viability of its business model, which was proposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) a few years back to promote financial inclusion.
ICICI Bank, a major Indian private sector lender, came in at fourth place with a score of 74 among 13 other banks that were considered “good.” HDFC managed to reach second position even though there were technical issues with the bank’s app in December 2019. Because of these issues, the bank’s clients had been unable to gain access its mobile app and its website for three days.
Banks like Reliance Industries-backed Jio Payments Bank and and Bandhan Bank have been labeled “unsatisfactory” among 50 Indian banks.
Meity’s rating system for Indian banking institutions takes into account factors like digital payments volume, new merchant acquisition, BHIM Aadhar point-of-sales (PoS) deployment, compliance measures for digital services and the effectiveness at addressing customer complaints and requirements.
Meity has been developing relevant policies to help increase the number of digital payments in India, which is part of the government’s ongoing effort to reach 40 billion digital transactions by March of this year. Meity helps monitor cashless transfers and keeps a record of all the digital payments, including UPI, carried out each month.