As part of the EASE Reforms, public sector banks (PSBs) on Wednesday launched the doorstep banking service that will bring convenience of banking services to the customers at their homes through the universal touch points of the call centre, web portal or mobile app.

The new service was inaugurated by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while participating in a virtual awards ceremony organised to felicitate best performing banks on EASE Banking Reforms Index.

The doorstep banking service provides customers with an interface with the bank through various touch points and also enables them to track their service request through these channels.

The services are rendered by the Doorstep Banking Agents deployed by the selected service providers at 100 centres across the country.

At present, only non-financial services such as pick up of negotiable instruments (cheque/demand draft/pay order, etc), of a new cheque book requisition slip, of various forms, request for account statement, delivery of non-personalised cheque book, delivery of term deposit receipt, acknowledgement, etc, delivery of TDS/Form 16 certificate issuance etc are available to customers.

From October, banks would start even offering financial services under doorstep banking service, a Finance Ministry statement said. The new service is chargeable and customers would need to pay a nominal fee for the bouquet of services.

Meanwhile, the government also felicitated thee Bank of Baroda, the State Bank of India, and erstwhile Oriental Bank of Commerce for being the top three (in that order) in the ‘Top Performing Banks’ category according to the EASE 2.0 Index Results.

The Bank of Maharashtra, the Central Bank of India and the erstwhile Corporation Bank were awarded in the ‘Top Improvers’ category basis EASE 2.0 Index.

The Punjab National Bank, the Union Bank of India, and the Canara Bank were also recognised for outstanding performance in select themes.

The government launched ease agenda, aimed at institutionalizing clean and smart banking in January 2018, and the subsequent edition of the programme ‘EASE 2.0’, built on the foundation laid in EASE 1.0 and furthered the progress on reforms.

PSBs have shown a healthy trajectory in their performance over four quarters since the launch of EASE 2.0 Reforms Agenda. The overall score of PSBs increased by 37 per cent between March-2019 and March-2020, with the average EASE index score improving from 49.2 to 67.4 out of 100.

Progress has also been seen across six themes of the Reforms Agenda, with the highest improvement seen in the themes of ‘Responsible Banking’, ‘Governance and HR’, ‘PSBs as Udyamimitra for MSMEs’, and ‘Credit off-take’.

PSBs have adopted tech-enabled, smart banking in all areas, setting up retail and MSME Loan Management Systems for reduced loan turnaround time and PSBloansin59minutes.com and TReDS for digital lending.