Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has launched doorstep banking services of state-run banks. The objective of this initiative is to increase the reach of banks to customers.
Mumbai: From October, you will get the services of government banks sitting at home. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has launched doorstep banking services of state-run banks. These services are part of Ease Reforms. This step will especially help senior citizens and differently-abled people. The objective of this initiative is to increase the reach of banks to customers. At present, only non-financial services like checks and demand drafts are made available through a dorstep banking agent.
Sitharaman gave this information on the occasion of the release of Ease 2.0 index ranking. Ease Index ranks public banks on the basis of their performance. This ranking is done on several scales. These include responsible banking, governance and HR, credit offtake, customer feedback and scale like ‘Entrepreneur Mitra’ for small industries. During March 2019 to March 2020, the total score of PSB has increased by 37 percent. At the same time, the average Ease Index score out of 100 has increased from 49.2 to 67.4.
The top 3 PSBs in the ranking include Bank of Baroda, State Bank of India and Oriental Bank of Commerce, which has become a part of Punjab National Bank. Government banks have taken several steps under Ease of Reforms. These include adoption of digital services, risk management and introduction of early warning signals (EWS).
It is also targeted to provide doorstep banking services under Easy Reforms. These will be accessed through a call center, web portal or mobile app. Customers can also track their service request through these channels. This service will be provided through Dorstep banking agents. For this, selected service providers will be installed at 100 centers across the country.
Sitamaran asked banks to follow the rules of caution in their business and try to fulfill the needs of enterprises as much as possible. He called upon banks to use digital technology to help improve economic condition.
He said that if banks are able to provide banking services on feature phones in addition to smartphones, then it will be a big transformative step. Banks should not forget their basic work, which is to give loans to people and earn money from it. This is completely legal. Also, being a government bank, some work should also be done for welfare, which is related to the announcements of the government. Private sector banks also have the responsibility to implement government schemes.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com
