Financial services under the doorstep banking service will be offered from next month

Doorstep Banking India

Indian Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman. (Credit: Ministry of Commerce & Industry.)

The Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman has launched Doorstep Banking Services by public sector banks (PSBs) to provide convenient banking to customers.

The move is part of Enhanced Access and Service Excellence (EASE) reforms being introduced for PSBs.

The new services will be provided by the Doorstep Banking Agents deployed by the selected service providers at 100 centres across the country.

Banking customers can book the services through touch points such as call centres, web portals or mobile apps and they can also track their service requests through the channels.

Nirmala Sitharaman was quoted by Mint as saying: “At this stage, the catalysts for economic revival, the catalysts who have the pulse of every one of their customers, are banks.

“The rapid pace with which India has adopted Jan Dhan, Aadhar and mobile can be a lesson to other countries.”

Under the new service, only non-financial services are now being offered to the customers. They include pick up of negotiable instruments, pick up new cheque book requisition slip, request for account statement, delivery of non-personalised cheque book, demand draft, and pay order, among others.

According to the finance ministry, financial services will be made available from October.

Doorstep banking services will be offered at nominal charges for customers

The services, which will be available at nominal charges for customers, are expected to be beneficial for customers, particularly senior citizens, defense personnel, the disabled, salaried employees, corporate clients and retail shopkeepers.

The finance ministry stated: “A comprehensive agenda for smart, tech-enabled banking has been adopted for FY2020-21, under which PSBs have initiated eShishu Mudra for straight-through processing of loans to micro-enterprises and digital personal loan for customers.

“PSBs have started providing customer-need driven credit offers through analytics and partnerships with FinTechs and e-commerce companies.”