EASE 3.0 UPSC

EASE 3.0

The Union Finance Minister has recently unveiled EASE 3.0 which deals with the Public sector reforms Agenda 2020-21 to enable smart and tech-enabled Banking in India. 

About PSB reforms EASE (Enhanced Access and Service Excellence) AGENDA 

• It is a common reform agenda for PSBs aimed at institutionalizing clean and smart banking. It was launched in January 2018, and the subsequent edition of the program i.e. EASE 2.0 built on the foundation laid in EASE 1.0 and furthered the progress on reforms. 

• EASE 3.0 sets the agenda and roadmap for financial year 2020-21 for the transformation of PSBs into digital and data-driven NextGen Banking of the Future. 

• EASE 3.0 emphasizes on the use of digital, analytics & AI, FinTech partnerships across customer service, convenient banking, end-to-end digitalised processes for loan sourcing and processing, analytics-driven risk management as well as decision support systems for HR. 

Key reform action points in EASE 3.0 Include 

• Dial-a-loan: For doorstep facilitation of loans. 

• Partnerships with FinTechs and E-commerce companies for customer-need driven credit offers. 

• Credit@click: End-to-end digitalised, time-bound retail and MSME lending by larger PSBs, leveraging Account Aggregators, FinTechs and PSBloansin59minutes.com 

• Cash-flow-based MSME credit by larger PSBs, using FinTech, Account Aggregator and other third-party data and transactions-based underwriting models.

• Tech-enabled agriculture lending 

• Palm banking: End-to-end digitalised delivery of a full bouquet of financial services in regional languages and with industry-best service quality.

• EASE Banking Outlets: On-the-spot banking at frequently visited places such as train stations, bus stands, malls, hospitals, etc. through paperless and digitally enabled banking outlets and kiosks

EASE Reform Index 

What it does? 

The Enhance Access & Service Excellence (EASE) reforms index measures performance of each PSB on 140 objective metrics across 6 themes. 

• Themes covered: 

Responsible Banking; Customer Responsiveness; Credit off-take; Udyamitra for MSMEs; Deepening Financial Inclusion and Digitisation; Governance and HR 

• Who publishes? 

The publishing of this independent report was commissioned by Indian Banks’ Association. 

• How this Index helps PSBs? 

The Index provides all PSBs a comparative evaluation showing where banks stand vis-à-vis benchmarks and peers on the Reforms Agenda. It enables the PSBs to identify precisely their strengths as well as areas for improvement. Through periodic updates and by providing bank-specific scorecards and inter-bank comparisons, all PSBs are enabled to keep track of their progress on key reform priorities across time. 

• Performance of Banks on EASE 2.0 Index: 

PSBs have shown a healthy improvement in their performance since the launch of EASE 2.0 Reforms Agenda. The overall score of PSBs increased by 35% between March-2019 and December-2019, with the average EASE index score improving from 49 to 66 out of 100. Significant progress is seen across six themes of the Reforms Agenda, with the highest improvement seen in the themes of ‘Responsible Banking’ and ‘PSBs as Udyamimitra for MSMEs’.