Question : Bank Deposit and Withdrawal Forms

(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?

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FINANCE

(a) to (d): RBI vide its master circular on Customer Service in Banks, dated 1st 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 non-compliance 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.