To promote Digital Payment, SBI plans to eliminate Debit Cards

To provide a flip to the government’s vision to increase digital payments in India, the largest bank in India, the State Bank of India (SBI) plans to eliminate plastic debit cards.

What is happening?

• As per the chairman of SBI, the SBI plans to eliminate the debit cards to provide an impetus for its customers to use various mediums of digital payments like Google Tezz, PhonePe, and the government’s own BHIM app.
• SBI also provides digital payment solutions via its own Yono platform.
• SBI has established over 68,000 Yono platforms by which a user can withdraw cash just like an ATM or pay for a purchase without a card. SBI plans to scale up Yono to over 1 million kiosks in the upcoming 18 months.
• As per SBI, there are over 90 crore debit cards in the country while there are just 3 crore credit cards.
• SBI hopes that the Yono will reduce the reliance of Indian consumers on debit cards in the upcoming future and plans to eliminate most cards in the coming 5 years.
• SBI also believes that the QR code is also a very inexpensive way of making transactions.

Why does this step of SBI matter?

As the biggest banker in India, SBI caters to the banking needs of over a fifth of the Indian population. Any step that SBI takes will act as a trendsetter for the entire banking industry in the country.