Comments
“Don’t make prospective customers sweat the small stuff, keep it simple.”
This appears to be the Finance Ministry’s underlying message to public sector banks when it comes to the application forms that potential customers have to fill in for opening savings bank account or taking small ticket loans.
So, long application forms, typically running into a few pages, for opening savings bank account or taking small ticket loans (up to Rs 2 lakh) are likely to make way for a simplified and standardised one-page form.
In keeping with the Ministry’s financial inclusion roadmap, bankers are already putting their heads together to ensure that life becomes a tad easy for customers.
As envisaged by the Ministry, each family, including migrant labourers in urban areas, in the country should have at least one bank account, and farm and non-farm households should have easy access to small value loans.
One-page form
“Without compromising on the established customer due diligence procedure, the simplified and standardised account opening form will make the account opening process for small depositors very simple and user-friendly.
“Application forms for small-ticket loans, especially for microenterprises, too will become simple and have just one page,” said a senior public sector bank official. The idea behind the simplification and standardisation of application forms is to save the customer the bother of making the rounds of a bank branch to open savings accounts or to take a small ticket loan.
They should be able to get their work done in one or two visits to the branch, he added.
A Ministry constituted working group on ‘know-your-customer’ guidelines has suggested that the Reserve Bank of India’s indicative list of documents required to be submitted as part of the mandatory due diligence procedure by customers for opening accounts should be expanded. This is to make the account opening procedure easier.
Among others, the group recommended that documents such as photo ID cards issued by post offices; photo ID cards issued to students by recognised universities/ institutes; and registered property document with photo ID could be used as proof of identification.
Further, in the case of a married woman, her identity proof with maiden name, if supported with a verified true copy of marriage certificate, could be considered a valid ID proof.
The group feels that address proof should also include income/ wealth tax assessment order; voter ID card (with the current address); and copies of registered leave & licence agreement/ sale deed/ lease agreement.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.