Terryorisms

Thumb-Print Banking Takes India January 19, 2007

Wired News: Thumb-Print Banking Takes India
There are 35,000 non-biometric ATMs in India today. In three years the number of machines is expected to triple to more than 100,000. Officials hope the plan will bring billions of rupees currently being held in private hands into the banking mainstream, and that it might even shelter the country’s poor from the ravages of inflation, theft and widespread corruption.

For example, some believe e-banking will help eliminate several layers of middlemen who manage, and often siphon off, government-allocated funds earmarked for low-income workers.

Under the current system, money gets sent from the government coffers and passes through the desks of dozens of bureaucrats and private contractors. Each tends to take a cut along the way so the money that reaches workers is usually only a fraction of what was allocated. Electronic banking will eliminate the middlemen, and provide a real increase in rural wages