Smart
Living through Financial Innovations – An overview
Innovation
is the order of the day now. Come any sphere of life and there are found end
number of innovations invading it. And it is rightly so as the homosapiens are the most creative of all
creatures in the universe. Every innovation has led to efficiency and
effectiveness in operations and convenience and ease in life and its
activities. Necessity is said to be mother of all inventions. Therefore every
innovation has in its root one or the other need of the hour. During the last
little over two decades i.e. end 20th century and beginning of 21st
century has unleashed a number of scams most of which have been related to
financial transactions. These scams gripped the society like anything and
crippled the life badly. Hence it may not be an exaggeration to infer that
financial innovations kicked off 21st century to arrest many devils
of the society and to cause smart living of its people and enterprises.
Discrepancies
bound life:
Human
civilization commenced trade through barter system where goods used to be
exchanged physically with each other. However with growth in civilization it
was found difficult and inconvenient to continue the barter system and people
thought of inventing some common means of transaction. Thus came the currencies
which facilitated trade and commerce anytime and anywhere. People started
exchanging their goods with currencies and at a later point, even currencies
with currencies as in case of loans etc. This physical form of exchange led to
scope of discrepancies in the financial transaction including the most
prominent under the table dealings. This is how came the concept of greasing
the palms of the power-that-be. This led to large scale corruption in the
society.
Financial
innovations:
If
the transaction in physical form of currencies created all the discrepancies
then the only answer of it was to shift to virtual transaction. This is what
exactly followed the philosophy behind all financial innovations. These
innovations saw to it that no physical form of currency including bank draft,
cheques etc. was involved in any financial transaction thus curtailing the
scope of discrepancies. Table no. – 1 given below provides an indicative (and
not exhaustive) list of some such innovative financial tools of the present
century that led to virtual financial transactions without physically involving
the currencies. People get seduced by the eye-catching simplicity, undeniable
usefulness, or fun gamification elements of these innovations. May it be
different types of cards like debit / credit / ATM / CDM cards or different
mechanisms executing financial transactions like internet / online banking /
shopping / booking or mobile banking, swapping machine etc. The amount thus gets transferred from one hand
to another hand without physically being in currency form and these
transactions are backed by proper evidences that remain for ever for tracing /
verifying these transactions, the amounts and the parties involved and in many
case(s) the cause(s) of transactions as well. Digitization of securities is in
lieu of that. However, this approach too has not been absolutely free from
discrepancies as the Satyamdotcom scam case indicates but yet it has brought
about transparencies to a great extent.
Table No. – 1:
Showing Innovative Financial Tools
S. No.
|
Innovative Financial Tools
|
S. No.
|
Innovative Financial Tools
|
1.
|
Plastic Money
|
12.
|
Cash Deposit
Machine (CDM)
|
2.
|
Debit Card
|
13.
|
Online
Shopping of goods and services
|
3.
|
Credit Card
|
14.
|
Online Booking
of tickets
|
4.
|
Automated
Teller Machine (ATM)
|
15.
|
Self-Help
Group (SHG)
|
5.
|
Micro
Automated Teller Machine (Micro-ATM)
|
16.
|
Micro Finance
|
6.
|
Internet /
Online Banking
|
17.
|
Payment Banks
|
7.
|
Mobile Banking
|
18.
|
Securities
Digitization
|
8.
|
Account
Transfer through National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT)
|
19.
|
Smart Cards
|
9.
|
Account
Transfer through Real-time Gross
Settlement (RTGS)
|
20.
|
Apps
|
10.
|
Swapping
Machine
|
21.
|
Mobile wallet
|
11.
|
Direct Benefit
Transfer (DBT)
|
22.
|
Instant Mobile
|
Payment banks:
One
of the issues involved in virtual transaction is the confidentiality of pin
number. There has been number of cases reported about cheating and frauds in
pin number uses creating concern about safety of financial transaction. Another
innovative financial tool has been now in place in form of payment banking that
adequately addresses the issue of pin number safety. Payments banks are niche banks set up by the Reserve Bank of
India to further the agenda of financial inclusion. With payments banks, the vast segment of customers who have
no access to such products will be able to get the advantage of the digital
channels and digital technology for regular banking services. The current
generic payment applications may not be suitable for all customer segments.
With a payments bank account, one may be able to do it through one’s phone
which need not even be a smart phone. The use of technology will be critical
for payments banks to attract customers.
Today if one has to transfer money
to someone via net banking, one has to first add the person as a beneficiary,
with details like bank account number, bank's IFSC code, among other details.
With payments banks, one may be able to do this without going through the
hassle of adding people, authenticating it through passwords and so on.
While some universal banks have also introduced innovations such as fund
transfer through social media like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, these have
so far not reached the mass audience.
Conclusions:
21st
century has therefore been the century of innovations. And amongst these
innovations, financial innovations are leading the lives and activities on this
globe, ofcourse, with active support of technological innovations. This paper
has presented a snapshot of so far financial innovations but many more are to
come in the times ahead and all of these are causing smart living of the people
on this earth. However, with every innovation there needs to be created a
matching awareness amongst its users as they are the ones who are either the
beneficiaries or the victims of these innovations. In this context the role of
the government – the regulator of all these financial innovations – becomes
very significant as these innovations bring complexities, challenges, risk and
novelties apart from ease in dealing with finance.