SBI will now have no ATM cards. Remembering your PIN will be enough to transact money.

In the race of making India, a 100% digital country, SBI, the biggest bank of India is planning to turn down the service of debit cards. They say that they aim to make India a digital, 100% debit card-less nation. As explained by the officials, it is being done to promote digital payment solutions and a way to reduce the use of plastic cards.

Currently, there is a 90 crore debit card in the country as compared to 3 crore credit cards. Around 1/5th of the total population of the country relies on debit cards for performing transactions and other payment solutions.

“It is our wish to eliminate the debit cards, and am sure we can eliminate them,” chairman Rajnish Kumar said.

While speaking to India Times, Rajnish Kumar also highlighted the bank’s agenda of promoting digital banking and payment solutions through SBI’s “Yono” platform.

Yono Platform is SBI’s initiative towards completely digitalizing banking activities, thus reducing the use of plastic and paper for performing transactions and other banking activities.

These Yono cash points allow the customer to interact with Automated Teller Machine. Merely basic accounts details and PIN are enough to perform daily banking transaction and the user will not be required to render the plastic debit or credit card to the ATM. Further, Yono platform also allows the users to make purchases & perform payments at shops.

As further told by the chairman, SBI has been able to already setup 68000 “Yono Cashpoints” around the nation and they aim to set up around a million such cash points in the next 18 months. This will pave the path for plastic and paperless banking.

While furthering describing the features and advantages of Yono, the chairman briefed about how the platform will allow the user to get short term credits from the bank for making purchases and other utility payments. This is how the Yono platform will replace the need for the credit card as well.

While pointing out the QR code payment technology, he said that it is very inexpensive and will aid a lot in converting the Indian banking system from paper-based to paperless. The bank aims to completely eradicate the need for using plastic cards in the coming 5 years. They also discussed bringing virtual coupons for performing banking transactions in future.