Finance ministry urges banks to enhance customer experience and financial inclusion
Jun 26, 2024
New Delhi [India], June 26 : The Finance Ministry urged Public Sector Banks (PSBs) to work towards reaching the final mile in order to strengthen the government's efforts to promote financial inclusion.
In a meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday, Department of Financial Services (DFS) Secretary Dr. Vivek Joshi chaired a meeting where initiatives such as CKYC, the Jan Samarth portal, Aadhar seeding, and other relevant schemes were reviewed.
Vivek Joshi requested banks make more efforts to improve the customer experience across banking services.
According to the ministry, the government has made financial inclusion a top priority. Financial inclusion aims to unleash the country's growth potential by providing financial services to a sizable portion of the underserved population. In order to provide universal banking services for every unbanked household, the government launched the National Mission for Financial Inclusion (NMFI), also known as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) in August 2014.
The programme is based on the guiding principles of banking the unbanked, securing the unsecured, funding the unfunded, and serving underserved and unserved areas.
The purpose of the meeting was to assess the status of financial inclusion initiatives with senior executives from UIDAI, Nabard, Sidbi, Mudra Ltd, CERSAI, and NCGTC, as well as heads of PSBs.
Additionally, the meeting also reviewed the establishment of brick-and-mortar bank branches in unbanked villages.
Vivek Joshi acknowledged the substantial progress in expanding social security and deepening financial inclusion through the government's flagship schemes.
He urged PSBs to work diligently to extend these initiatives to the last mile. Discussions also covered issues related to CKYC, the Jan Samarth portal, and Aadhar seeding.
During the meeting, he stated that although the government's flagship programmes have made great strides towards deepening financial inclusion and extending social security throughout the nation, he urged the PSBs to strive towards completing the last mile in order to support the government's financial inclusion initiatives, an official statement added.
Amit Agrawal, Chief Executive Officer of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI ) also took part in the meeting to showcase the new product launched by UIDAI to benefit the banks while undertaking Aadhar authentication.
