Doorstep banking: your bank must come to you

Take a scene that plays out at branch counters every week. A son walks in for his 78 year old father, who has not managed stairs since a knee replacement, and asks the bank to send someone home to collect a cheque. The reply comes in four seconds: sorry sir, we do not do that here. That reply is wrong, and a Reserve Bank of India circular dated 31 March 2020 spells out why.

The circular is numbered DOR.CO.Leg.BC.No.59/09.07.005/2019-20. RBI sent it to all scheduled commercial banks including regional rural banks, all payments banks, all small finance banks and all local area banks. It exists because RBI checked on its earlier order of 9 November 2017 and found that doorstep services were, in its exact words, yet to be offered by banks or were restricted to select branches.

Read the row on charges again, because it is the one people misquote. RBI never promised this free. RBI ordered the price to be published. Your bank may charge you. What it may not do is hide the price, or refuse the service.

On age, the RBI wording is “more than 70 years of age”, though most banks write their own policy as 70 and above. The disability route carries no age bar, but it does want a medical certificate, so keep one handy.

Three different things go by the name doorstep banking in India, and mixing them up is why families get told the wrong thing.

1. The RBI duty. The 2017 and 2020 instructions above. They bind every scheduled commercial bank, RRB, payments bank, small finance bank and local area bank, they name the eligible customers and the services, and they can be escalated to the regulator.
2. The PSB Alliance platform. PSB Alliance Pvt. Ltd. is a company jointly set up by the 12 public sector banks. It runs a shared doorstep service through a mobile app, a call centre and the portal at doorsteppsba.com. It serves a far wider set of customers than the RBI categories, and it is charged. It is not a rival scheme. At a public sector bank it is usually the channel through which the bank discharges its RBI duty.
3. Your private bank. A private bank carries the same RBI duty and has no PSB Alliance behind it. Do not send an HDFC or ICICI customer to doorsteppsba.com. Send them to their own bank website, to the Board approved policy and branch list the 2020 circular requires them to publish there.

Canara Bank shows this in practice. Its 2026-27 policy sets out three models: Model I through the outsourced common service provider, mandatorily; Model II through the bank's own Customer Relationship Officers, best effort; Model III through general branch staff, also best effort. Only customers aged 70 and above, and persons with disabilities aged 18 and above, qualify for the two staff based models, which run within 5 km of the home branch. So the mandatory lane at a public sector bank is the outsourced one. The staff lanes are extras your branch may or may not run.

There is no RBI fee. Each bank sets and publishes its own. For a real anchor rather than a rumour, here is Canara Bank for 2026-27.

1. Model I, the outsourced service: ₹75 plus applicable GST per request.
2. Senior citizens above 75 at Canara: waived for up to 3 services a month, then ₹75 plus GST.
3. Model II and Model III, delivered by bank staff: ₹100 plus applicable GST per request.

Those are Canara's numbers on Canara's policy. Do not assume yours match. The 2020 circular obliges your bank to keep its own schedule in a brochure and on its website. Canara also caps the transactions: cash withdrawal and cash deposit between ₹1,000 and ₹10,000 per request, and fund transfer up to ₹25,000 a day. Treat it as an errand service for routine sums.

1. Check the account. Most banks need a KYC compliant account, a registered mobile number and operative status. Canara excludes minor, NRE, jointly operated, company and trust accounts, and does not extend the service to a power of attorney holder.
2. Find the published policy and branch list on the bank website. This is not a courtesy. The 2020 circular requires both to be public.
3. Book through the channel that policy names, whether that is the PSB Alliance app, portal and call centre, or the branch itself.
4. Put the request in writing and take a dated acknowledgement. Canara even lets a customer ask the branch to come and register them at home.
5. Quote the circular numbers. Write DBR.No.Leg.BC.96/09.07.005/2017-18 dated 9 November 2017 and DOR.CO.Leg.BC.No.59/09.07.005/2019-20 dated 31 March 2020 into the request. A branch manager reacts differently to a circular number than to a complaint.

For a pensioner this is usually the whole reason the family goes looking. Three routes exist and they stack.

The branch rule. The 2017 circular says a pensioner may submit a physical life certificate at any branch of the pension paying bank, and the receiving branch itself must promptly upload it to core banking even if it is not the home branch. RBI wrote that because branches were sitting on forms and pensions were stopping.

Doorstep banking. Life certificate submission is on the RBI list. Canara describes the field process: an agent visits the house and completes it through the Jeevan Pramaan app, or through a fallback where the agent helps fill and sign a physical form, photographs the signed form and the customer, verifies Aadhaar details and delivers the form to the branch.

The November campaign. Jeevan Pramaan is the government's biometric Digital Life Certificate service. On top of it, the Department of Pension and Pensioners' Welfare has run a nationwide DLC campaign each November since 2023. The fourth edition ran from 1 to 30 November 2025 across 2,000 districts with 19 pension disbursing banks. India Post Payments Bank ran doorstep DLC through its postmen and Gramin Dak Sewaks for pensioners of any bank, and the banks held camps that included visits to the homes and hospitals of aged, disabled or sick pensioners. If the campaign runs again this November and your parent is housebound, it is the easiest window of the year.

1. Complain to the bank in writing, not by phone. Keep the reference number and name the circular you rely on. RBI will not hear you until you have done this.
2. Wait 30 days, or go sooner if you get a reply you are not satisfied with.
3. File with the RBI Ombudsman. Since 1 July 2026 the governing scheme is the Reserve Bank Integrated Ombudsman Scheme, 2026, which replaced the 2021 scheme. It is cost free. File at cms.rbi.org.in, e-mail [email protected], or post a signed complaint to the Centralised Receipt and Processing Centre, Reserve Bank of India, Central Vista, Sector 17, Chandigarh 160017.
4. Mind the 90 day limit. The complaint must reach the Ombudsman within 90 days of that 30 day period expiring, or of the bank's last communication, whichever is later.
5. Use the helpline if stuck. RBI's contact centre runs an automated facility on toll free 14448 round the clock, with staffed help from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM, Monday to Saturday, in English, Hindi and ten regional languages. It cannot register a complaint, but it will guide you and give you the status.

Refusing a service the regulator ordered the bank to provide is a shortcoming in a service the bank is required to provide, which is exactly what the scheme calls deficiency in service.

No. RBI has not fixed any fee and has not ordered the service to be free. It has ordered that charges be prominently shown in brochures and on the bank website. Canara Bank publishes ₹75 plus GST per request for its outsourced model, waived for up to 3 services a month above age 75. Your bank's schedule will differ, so ask for it.

Possibly, but not on age. The RBI wording covers senior citizens of more than 70 years of age and, separately, differently abled or infirm persons with medically certified chronic illness or disability. If her condition is certified, she can claim the second limb. Attach the certificate to the request.

Generally no. Banks typically restrict the service to the customer's own account and do not extend it to a power of attorney holder or a representative. Canara's published policy says so directly. You can arrange and chase the service, but the transaction stays with your parent.

No. That domain does not serve the doorstep banking portal. The live PSB Alliance customer portal is doorsteppsba.com, and the service is also reachable through the Doorstep Banking mobile app and the PSB Alliance call centre. Check your bank's own doorstep banking page for current contact details.

Count 30 days from the day the bank received it. If nothing comes back, file with the RBI Ombudsman at cms.rbi.org.in within 90 days of that period ending. It costs nothing and you do not need a lawyer. A complaint filed by an advocate on your behalf is in fact not maintainable unless the advocate is the aggrieved person.

For a public sector bank, yes. Ask for the Board approved doorstep banking policy, the list of branches where the service is mandatory, the current schedule of charges, and the last quarterly report placed before the Customer Service Committee of the Board. If the reply is evasive, run it through the PIO Reply Checker and build an appeal with the First Appeal Builder.

Open your parent's bank website and look for its doorstep banking policy and branch list. If both are there, book through the channel the policy names. If either is missing, that absence is itself a breach of the 31 March 2020 circular and the cleanest line to put in a written complaint. For the wider skill of making a public body answer a citizen properly, The RTI Playbook runs from first application to second appeal.

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