Doorstep banking will be a key focus area of Jan Dhan 3

Doorstep banking, digital financial products and convergence of key pension and insurance schemes will be the focus of the third round of financial inclusion plan, Jan Dhan 3, according to a report.

Making banking facilities available within 5 km of habitats is also one of the aims of Jan Dhan. 3. The government is working on a plan to develop a broad structure for better access, easy digital loan applications, and quicker response for retail, MSME and agricultural loans, the Economic Times quoted an official as saying.

Banks should adopt partnership model

The Centre is also looking at converging Jan Dhan accounts with schemes such as the Atal Pension Yojana, Stand Up India and the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana.

With JAM (Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and mobile) framework in place, banks can explore the possibilities of coming up with analytics-based offers and expand their coverage, the official said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking at a conference last week had said that banks needed to adopt a partnership model and shed the culture of being an approver and the customer being an applicant.

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, a financial inclusion programme, was launched to bring a large part of the unbanked population to the banking network in just over a year after the launch, 19.72 crore bank accounts were opened.

As much as 53% women Jan Dhan account holders and 59% Jan Dhan accounts are in rural and semi urban areas. More than 83% operative Jan Dhan accounts (except states of Assam, Meghalaya, J&K) are Aadhaar seeded, with issuance of approximately 24.4 crore RuPay cards to these account holders. Also, more than 7.5 crore Jan Dhan accounts have received direct benefit transfer.