As all the organizations are in the race to go online and they do want to lead in this race, we are witnessing the change that had happened in these few years. We cannot imagine how our life has been changed or transformed by these facilities. Now we can pay bills, shop and can do many more things online. But when we shop for or pay for anything online either we pay it by using our credit or debit cards or by using online banking. There are many other ways to pay but these two methods are used commonly. One thing that most of us did not notice is that what is the role of banks in that transaction and can they be termed as an Intermediary? Let us try to find that out.
Definition of Intermediary
Section 2(w) of IT Act, 2008: "Intermediary" with respect to any particular electronic records, means any person who on behalf of another person receives, stores or transmits that record or provides any service with respect to that record and includes telecom service providers, network service providers, internet service providers, web hosting service providers, search engines, online payment sites, online-auction sites, online market places and cyber cafes.
By reading this definition it can be understood that any person1 who on behalf on another person receives, stores or transmits that record or provides any service with respect to that record. We can say that the intermediary provides a link between the originator and the addressee. Today most of the people who live in urban areas2 are doing E-Banking, E-Shopping, E-Payments etc. to save their time and effort. Now instead of withdrawing cash from their bank accounts people are using their credit or debit cards to pay for several things. What is the function of a bank, we deposit our cash in it so that it will be in a safer place and whenever we want we can withdraw it by simply requesting the bank. Thus bank is receiving money from us also it is storing it as well as it transmits the money back to us or to some third party that we have asked the bank to do. The only question that arises here is whether the information or data is transmitting in electronic form or not. If we use our ATM card or pay online we are not dealing with hard cash directly thus and the payment is also processed via online system or gateways and that amount is deducted from our account. Thus the whole procedure is happening electronically without any physical effort. Also the banks are offering E-banking to their customers and by this we can also say that they are dealing with electronic records.
Conclusion:
As we have inspected above the working of banks, e-transactions and also we have studied the definition of Intermediary thus we can say that, yes the bank can be termed as intermediaries they banks are fulfilling all the requirements to be an intermediary as mentioned in The IT ACT, 2008.
