Saving Bank Account Number Portability

     After successful implementation of Mobile Number Portability and Health Insurance Portability, now Indian Government is planning to implement Bank Account Number Portability (BANP) which will give great comfort to customers.

     Due to this portability, you can switch your bank account from one bank to other bank without loosing your last  account number. Financial authorities are working on technical aspects of this issue. Reserve Bank of India says that once a bank customer is in the possession of a number given by the Unique Identification Authority of India it (BANP) would be easy to implement practically.

     According to D. K. Mittal, Financial services secretary, banks would have to work on know your customer (KYC) norms, Core Banking Solutions, identification code and CBS for implementing BANP.

Advantages:

1. If your company doesn't support your current bank then you can port your account number to the new bank.

2. It will increase competition among banks to acquire more customers hence increases their quality of service and make them customer friendly.

Disadvantages:

1. It will increase the cost of acquisition and service.

2. It will harm smaller and weaker banks.

3. Heavy initial investment and service costs are required to set up BANP IT infrastructue.

4. Technically trained staff is required to successfully run the process.

Questions:

1. Actually when we transfer money we use Account number + IFSC code for NEFT. So what happens to IFSC codes? any info about it?

2. Account number reflects city/branch identification. After portability this will mess up.

3. Appropriate access rights are very sensitive as far as customers privacy is concerned, How those rights are defined?

4. Since the central database of ported numbers will be available to all member banks, how to deal with IT security and confidentiality of client information

     BANP is need of today's fast growing life. It will not only change current Online banking network but also gives brand new look to Indian Banking 

Do you know?
Bank Account Number Portability  service is active in United Kingdom, Australia, Hungary and South Africa.

Want to read more about BANP? Click here to read PDF file provided by Infosys.com

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