SBI customers may soon access services across PNB, BoB, other PSBs FREE! Here's new plan

Thanks to technology, banking services have become accessible like never before. Within a few minutes, you can now transfer money, withdraw cash, open account, avail personal and auto loan offers, open fixed deposits, invest in mutual funds and stocks etc. Soon, you may even be able to access services offered by your bank at other banks. But for availing such facility, you will have to be the customer of a Public Sector Bank (PSB) like State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), Bank of Baroda etc.  

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in her first budget speech on Friday last that banks will further improve the ease of living for customers by providing online personal loans, doorstep banking, and enabling customers of one Public Sector Bank to access services across all Public Sector Banks. 

"To further improve ease of living, they will leverage technology, offering online personal loans and doorstep banking, and enabling customers of one Public Sector Bank to access services across all Public Sector Banks," said Sitharaman. 

The Finance Minister also announced to provide a Rs 70,000 crore capital boost to the PSBs. 

Currently, PSB account holders customers can't access services offered by their banks across all other PSBs. Applying for online personal loans is, however, possible. The banks are yet to take doorstep banking in a big way. 

Apart from the above, Budget 2019 has focussed on digital payments by multiple means of incentivizing digital transactions as well as penalising the use of cash beyond a certain limit. Some of the steps announced by Sitharaman are: 

-  The Budget has proposed to levy a 2% tax at source on cash withdrawal exceeding Rs 1 crore in a year from a bank account. 

- Business establishments with annual turnover more than Rs 50 crore will need to offer low-cost digital modes of payments like BHIM UPI, UPI-QR Code, Aadhaar Pay, Debit cards, NEFT and RTGS to their customers.