Kolkata: Despite the continuing focus on and excitement around smartphones, the market of feature phones in India is very big. The usage of feature phones is more pronounced in the lower parts of the financial pyramid. All these have ensured that all the mobile phone apps that banks have launched in India to bring banking services to the fingertips of a large segment of the population have eluded a very big number of citizens of this country. The reason: all the banking apps are meant for smartphones.

In a major move to bridge this intra-digital divide, Reserve Bank of India has taken up the cause of the crores of people who use feature phones and have, therefore, remained outside the purview of the digital banking revolution. Let’s find out what this means and how this can be done.

Promoting financial inclusion

Reports have stated that RBI has urged banks and finance companies to launch low-bandwidth apps. All the apps that banks launch require high bandwidth, which means these cannot be used without a smartphone. Now RBI, which has financial inclusion as one of its objectives, is trying to bridge this divide in digital banking services. RBI wants that banks should come up with digital products which can be used by customers who have feature phones. These products can also be of immense help to people living in the rural areas and remote parts of the country. If connectivity is a problem, use of smartphones become difficult or impossible.

Though there has been a proliferation of banking services through the Jan Dhan Yojana at the lower end of the financial pyramid, most of this segment has remained outside the purview of the digital banking services since a large section of this population use feature phones. According to reports, financial inclusion is an area where the incumbent RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra has an abiding interest.

Wide use of feature phones

In India, the feature phones have witnessed steady demand, thanks to their affordability and long battery life. According to statista, the revenue generated in the feature phones market in India is set to reach $2.1bn in 2025. This is the largest feature phone market in the world. It was projected that the volume of the feature phones market is estimated to reach 35.2 million units by 2029.