New Delhi: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday urged state-owned banks to remained focused on their core business—lending and earning money out of it—and expand its services through digital technology and banking mitras in the remote areas.
“…(It is important to give access to banking services) to parts of India that has absolutely no access and people are only dependent on walking miles to the banks. The access can be through phone banking and not necessarily by opening branches…There is still a gap even in the developed states. There is some gap in some pockets hilly, remote areas. I would appeal to you all to make special attempts to reach out to people through your bank mitras so that no one is excluded in the digital revolution which the banking sector is undergoing,” Sitharaman said at an event organized by Indian Banks’ Association.
“Laurels cannot be obtained by focusing on crowded, densely populated metropolitan areas.”
In a strong message to step up access to credit the minister told the banks to ensure that their staff is not ignorant of the government-related schemes and must proactively play a crucial role towards revival of the economy.
“Banks’ core business is to lend money and earn out of it. You will do that and being public sector (banks), you will do things that are welfare related as announced by the government…that awareness (about the schemes pertaining to insurance, pension, among others) will make them accessible to customers who may want to avail a particular scheme…It cannot be that your some of your staff is ignorant of schemes,” she said.
As far as technology-driven reforms and initiatives with respect to doorstep banking is concerned, the minister said that the timing is significant as digital technology will drive economic revival—a top priority for the government at the moment. Such reforms will be crucial at a time when the country is in the middle of a global pandemic that has not only led to loss of lives but also hurt economic growth.
In February, the government had unveiled public sector banks’ reform agenda 2020-21--EASE 3.0—that will be driven by smart, tech-enabled banking. The first edition of PSB reforms EASE agenda was launched in January 2018 to institutionalize clean and smart banking. Public sector banks have shown significant improvement in the action points of the EASE reforms agenda since its introduction, the finance ministry had earlier said.
In a separate statement, the finance ministry said that financial services can be offered via doorstep banking October onwards.
In a first, banking services will be provided by doorstep banking agents deployed by the select service providers at 100 centres across the country. Doorstep banking services will offer of banking services to the customers at their door step through call centre, web portal and mobile app. Customers can also track their service request through these channels. At present only non-financial services such as picking up of cheques, demand draft, GST challan, delivery of non-personalised cheque book, among others are allowed.
“The services can be availed by customers of Public Sector Banks at nominal charges. The services shall benefit all customers, particularly Senior Citizens and Divyangs who would find it at ease to avail these services,” an official statement said.
