Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam Uncovers Doorstep Banking Services


Finance Minister  Nirmala Sitharam Uncovers Doorstep Banking Services
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam has inaugurated Doorstep Banking Services by Public Sector Banks (PSBs). She even participated in the awards ceremony to felicitate banks that are performing well on EASE Banking Reforms Index. The newly launched banking service would provide the convenience of banking services to the customers at their doorsteps. The banking services could be rendered by doorstep banking agents that have been deployed by the selected Service providers at 100 centers across India. 
 The new banking service would serve as a part of the EASE Reforms, Doorstep Banking Services has envisaged offering the convenience of banking services to the customers right at their doorstep using the universal touchpoints of web portal, mobile apps, or call center as they could track their service request through these modes. 
These services would be available to the customers of Public Sector Banks at nominal charges. It would also benefit all the customers, especially Senior Citizen and Divyangs who would find it easy to avail these services. Furthermore, PSBs have projected a healthy trajectory in their performance for over four quarters from the launch of the Ease 2.0 Reforms Agenda. 
The overall score of PSBs has raised by 37 percent between March 2019 and March 2020. The average EASE index score has improved from 4.9.2 to 67.4 out of 100. Alongside, the significant progress has been noticed across six themes of the Reforms Agenda, with the highest improvement observed in the themes of 'Responsible Banking', 'Governance and HR', 'PSBs as Udyamimitra for MSMEs', and Credit off-take. 
Presently, Most of the PSB customers can now access more than 35 services that include IMPS, NEFT, RTGS, intra-bank transfer, account statement, cheque book request on mobile/ Internet banking and 23 services such as cheque book issuance, cheque status, issuance of form 16A, block/activate the debit card on the call center. Further,  the availability of the services has been doubled over the last 24 months. 
However, close four crore active customers on mobile and internet banking with more than 140 percent increase in financial transactions through mobile and internet have been witnessed. Additionally, about 50 percent of financial transactions through digital channels is noticed.