Lok Sabha Question No. 4184 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-03-22
Subject: Bank Deposit and Withdrawal Forms
Ministry: FINANCE
Asked by: C.N. Annadurai, Gajanan Chandrakant Kirtikar, Gautham Sigamani Pon, Arvind Ganpat Sawant, Dhanush M Kumar

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF FINANCE

## DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 4184

TO BE ANSWERED ON THE 22 ND  MARCH 2021/ CHAITRA 1, 1943 (SAKA)

## Bank Deposit and Withdrawal Forms

## 4184.  SHRI C.N. ANNADURAI:

SHRI GAJANAN KIRTIKAR:

SHRI GAUTHAM SIGAMANI PON:

SHRI ARVIND GANPAT SAWANT:

SHRI DHANUSH M. KUMAR:

Will the Minister of FINANCE be pleased to state:

- (a) whether various deposits and withdrawal forms used in Public Sector banks are in English and Hindi language only and not in regional language;
- (b) if so, the details thereof and the reasons therefor;
- (c) whether many of the villagers who are literate in regional language find it difficult to fill up forms to have bank transactions;
- (d) if so, whether the Government will consider printing regional language forms for deposit and withdrawal for the benefit of village bank customers and if so, the details thereof; and
- (e) the  other  steps  taken  by  the  Government  to  extend  more  facilities  for  bank  customers especially in rural areas/backward areas and single illiterate women?

## ANSWER

## THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FINANCE (SHRI ANURAG SINGH THAKUR)

(a) to (d): RBI vide its master circular on Customer Service in Banks, dated 1 st July, 2015, has issued instructions regarding the usage of trilingual forms i.e., English, Hindi and regional languages in all printed material used by retail customers, including, inter alia, account opening forms, pay-in-slips, passbooks,  etc.,  in  order  to  ensure  that  banking  facilities  percolate  to  the  vast  sections  of  the population.  RBI  has  further  apprised  that  compliance  to  RBI  guidelines  issued  to  banks  is examined  on  sample  basis  during  their  Supervisory  Assessment  of  the  banks  and  any  noncompliance observed is taken up for rectification apart from initiating  supervisory/enforcement action against the bank, as deemed fit.

(e): The banks engage Bank Mitras (BMs) / Banking Correspondents (BCs), to provide customers easy  access  to  services  including  in  rural/backward  and  remote  areas  of  the  country.  The  total number  of  operational  BCs  are  1.55  lakhs.  In  Financial  Year  (FY)  2019-20,  75%  of  total transactions performed through BC channel were in rural areas and likewise in FY 2020-21 (till date), 64% of total transactions performed through BC channel were in rural areas

Further,  in  order  to  extend  reach  and  more  facilities  for  customers,  PSBs  have  leveraged technology with mobile and internet banking, enabled by increase in average number of services offered  (41),  customer-friendly  features  (132),  and  local  language  customer-interface  in  eight languages,  leading  to  significant  improvement  in  digital  adoption  among  its  customers.  The doubling  of  customers  active  on  digital  channels  to  7.2  crore  and  a  38%  increase  in  digital transactions  from  home-and-mobile  has  resulted  in  enhanced  access  to  services  and  facilities offered by banks to all customers.

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