PSBs to bring financial services to your doorstep from October

New Delhi: Financial services will be a part of the doorstep banking services available to public sector bank (PSB) customers from October, according to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The minister announced the decision during the release of the EASE 2.0 Index rankings on PSB performance from March 2018 to 2020, according to an official statement issued on Wednesday. The move is seen particularly benefiting senior citizens and those in the ‘divyang’ category, it said. Currently, only nonfinancial services such as pickup of cheques and demand draft are available through doorstep banking agents.

The EASE Index ranks PSBs based on their performance in various themes like responsible banking, governance and HR, credit offtake, customer responsiveness and ‘Udyamimitra’ for micro, small and medium enterprises. The overall score of PSBs improved by 37% between March 2019 and March 2020, with the average EASE Index score rising from 49.2 to 67.4 out of 100, the statement said. The sharpest improvement was made under the responsible banking theme.

The top three PSBs in the rankings included Bank of Baroda, State Bank of India and the erstwhile Oriental Bank of Commerce, which is now a part of Punjab National Bank (PNB). The top three in terms of improvements were Bank of Maharashtra, Central Bank and the erstwhile Corporation Bank, now merged with Union Bank of India. As part of the EASE reforms, PSBs have taken various initiatives such as adopting digital services, instituting data-driven risk assessments, and introducing early warning signals (EWS) systems. The steps have resulted in a 67% decrease in retail loan turnaround time from 30 days to 10 days.