A small difference

The government has, on multiple occasions, said that banking services would be brought within the reach — read fingertips — of every Indian. While physical bank branches will bear the brunt of this onslaught of technology, it appears the government is more than prepared for such a situation. At an event organised by an industry body, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant declared physical banks in the country were “dead”, with India becoming “a land of a billion biometrics”. However, the press release sent out by the organisers later quoted Kant as saying that physical banking is “almost” dead.