
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday issued draft guidelines on Digital Banking Channel (Directions) Authorisation 2025 stating that banks cannot make it mandatory for their customers to choose any ‘digital banking channel’ to avail services like debit cards. The draft norms have proposed stronger fraud protection rules to protect customers.
“While it may be more convenient for the customer to opt for some services together (for example, virtual access to card controls), the choice to apply for digital banking facilities shall lie solely with the customer,” the draft said.
Also, banks should obtain explicit consent from the customer for providing digital banking services, which may be duly recorded/documented, it said.
Third-party products and services should not be displayed on banks’ digital banking channels, said the central bank in the proposed norms.
“Third-party products and services, including those of promoter groups or bank group entities (subsidiaries/joint ventures/associates), shall not be displayed on banks’ digital banking channels except as specifically permitted by the Reserve Bank from time to time,” it said.
Banks offering mobile banking service (other than through mobile applications) must ensure that customers across mobile network operators can avail of the service, i.e. the service will be network independent.
“Banks shall put in place risk-based transaction monitoring and surveillance mechanism. Study of customer transaction behaviour pattern and monitoring unusual transactions or obtaining prior confirmation from customers for outlier transactions may be incorporated in the systems in accordance with the Fraud Risk Management Policy of the bank,” said RBI in its draft.
The draft said banks shall put in place appropriate risk mitigation measures in accordance with their policies, like transaction limit (per transaction, daily, weekly, monthly), transaction velocity limit, and fraud checks depending on their risk perception.
Stakeholders’ comments have been sought on the draft till August 11.
The proposed norms want banks to take prior to the RBI for launching transactional banking facility. They will also have to provide supporting documents, including related to net worth as per minimum regulatory requirement or Rs 50 crore, whichever is higher, as on March 31 of the immediately preceding financial year.
All banks which have implemented Core Banking Solution (CBS) and have enabled their public-facing Information Technology (IT) infrastructure to handle Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) traffic are eligible to provide view-only banking facility for internet banking, mobile banking, and other digital banking channels-based services, the draft said.