This is to clarify that there are no restrictions for persons of the queer community to open a joint bank account and also to nominate a person in the queer relationship as a nominee to receive the balance in the account in the event of the account holder, the finance ministry said in an advisory dated August 28.

The advisory for Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community (LGBT community) from the ministry comes in view of the Supreme Court order dated October 17, 2023, in the case of Supriyo@Supriya Chakraborty and another vs Union of India (Writ Petition Civil No. 1011/2022).

A clarification in this regard has also been issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to all the scheduled commercial banks on August 21, 2024, the advisory by the Department of Financial Services under the finance ministry said.

The RBI, in 2015, directed banks to include a separate column ‘third gender’ in all their forms and applications to help transgender persons open bank accounts and avail of related services.

Following the 2015 order, several banks launched services catering to transgender.