One of India's top banks allows same-sex couples to have joint accounts and removes gender-specific dress code

• Axis Bank has become one of the first banks to announce new policies and practices for its customers and employees from the LGBTQ community.
• People who identify themselves as part of the LGBTQIA community still face problems in financial services as same sex marriage in India is not yet legalised.
• The new policies will be effective from September 20, 2021.

As India celebrates the third anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling, which decriminalised homosexuality, Axis Bank has become one of the first banks to announce new policies and practices for its customers and employees from the LGBTQ community, under a new campaign named ‘DilSeOpen’.

People who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA) still face problems in financial services as same sex marriage in India is not yet legalised.

To mark this day, Axis Bank rolled out ‘ComeAsYouAre’ policies. These are the initiatives taken for the employees —

• Mediclaim benefits
  Employees can list their partner’s name for mediclaim benefits irrespective of their gender, caste, sex or marital status.

• Dress according to their wishes
  Employees can freely dress according to their gender expression, which means it is not mandatory for the employees to dress according to their birth gender.

• Restroom of own choice
  Employees are free to use the restroom according to their own gender expression.

• Redressal Process
  New Human Resources policy that offers redressal to the problems faced by the employees from this community.

Axis Bank has also rolled out new initiatives for its customers, which will be effective from September 20.

• Joint accounts
  According to the law by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), there is no restriction on who can open bank accounts. However, still homosexual couples are often refused by the banks while opening a joint account. Axis Bank’s new policy welcomes same sex partners to open joint accounts.

• Choose ‘Mx’ as gender
  Customers from the community will have the option to choose their title as ‘Mx’ while filling out forms.

• Same sex partner as Nominee
  Customers can make their same sex partners as their nominee.

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