New Delhi: State Bank of India (SBI) on Friday said it is exploring the option of installing iris scanners at banking correspondent or customer service center to address the challenges faced by senior pensioners or customers. This will save the senior citizens from visiting branches and withdrawing pension through their nearest Bank Mitra channel.
“The bank is also examining the option of installing iris scanners at our BC/CSP (Bank Mitra) channels to address the challenges faced by our senior pensioners/customers,” SBI said in a statement. SBI has always aligned its business goals with national priorities, and has focused on a range of financial inclusion activities.
However, it said, an unfortunate incident has come to the fore recently where a senior citizen customer faced difficulty in withdrawing his old age pension from the nearby CSP (Bank Mitra) in Jharigaon block of Nabarangpur district of Odisha because of his fingerprints. The marks had faded. Not recognized by biometric reader at CSP (Bank Mitra). As per the prescribed protocol, the nearest link branch, SBI Jharigaon paid the pension amount immediately by manually debiting the amount from the pensioner’s account. He has also been assured by the Branch Manager that henceforth the pension will be disbursed at his doorstep.
The statement said that as a gesture of goodwill, SBI has donated a wheelchair to the pensioner for his ease of movement. “While necessary protocols are already in place to deal with such situations, SBI has taken further cognizance of the matter and has started reiterating the guidelines to all our BCs/CSPs (Bank Mitra) so that they may respond to any issues they may face. You may contact your link branches in case of any issue. them to serve our customers,” it said.