Year End Review of Department of Financial Services

• Context (PIB): A year-end recap of Department of Financial Services (Ministry of Finance) initiatives was released.

Enhanced Access and Service Excellence (EASE) Reforms

• The EASE Reforms are governed by the EASE Steering Committee of the Indian Bank’s Association.
• Gyan Sangam – 2016 and PSB Manthan- 2017 inspired the EASE reform.
• EASE Awards are given to banks for annual performance in the EASE Agenda.
• PSB Manthan 2.0 (2022) resulted in the launch of the EASENext program.
• EASE 6.0 (FY24) targets digital enablement, analytical operations, and Tech-enabled capability building.

Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) IBA was formed in 1946. Members: Public Sector Banks, Private Sector Banks, Foreign Banks having offices in India, Co-operative Banks, Regional Rural Banks and All India Financial Institutions.

UPI related initiatives

• E-RUPI: Person- and purpose-specific voucher management system to enable direct benefit transfer.
• 123 Pay: UPI for feature phone users, available in 20 languages.
• Credit Line on UPI: Enables pre-sanctioned credit lines from banks via UPI.
• Hello! UPI: An AI-voice-enabled payment feature built by Bhashini (under MeitY) and NPCI allows users to make conversation-based UPI transactions in Hindi and English using feature phones and smartphones.
• UPI LITE X: Addresses challenges of remote areas by enabling offline UPI payments.