As part of the new policies, all employees can list their partner for mediclaim benefits irrespective of gender, sex or marital status. Also, employees can dress in accordance with their gender/gender expression the bank said.

Further, customers from LGBTQIA+ community will be able to list their title as ‘Mx’ in their Savings and Term Deposit Accounts, the bank said. As part of this, customers can open a joint Savings Term Deposit Account with their same sex partner.

Also, customers can add their same sex partner as a nominee in their Savings or Term Deposit Accounts, the bank said.

The bank said the inclusive policies are aligned with bank’s wide environment, social and governance (ESG) commitments.

The private lender also said these inclusive policies are in the same spirit of Supreme Court verdict on Section 377 on September 6, 2018. The verdict decriminalizes all sexual relationships between consenting adults in private.

Rajesh Dahiya, Executive Director, Axis Bank, said “At Axis, we have put our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion that respects and recognizes the importance of distinctive life journeys and several identities that extend beyond the paradigms of gender.”

The South Asian market’s central bank said the new restrictions will go into effect on July 22. “Notwithstanding the lapse of considerable time and adequate opportunities being given, the entity has been found to be non-compliant with the directions on Storage of Payment System Data,” RBI said in a statement Wednesday.

The new order won’t impact existing customers of Mastercard, which is one of the top three card issuers in India, RBI said. “Mastercard shall advise all card issuing banks to conform to these directions,” it said.

This isn’t the first time India’s central bank has penalized any firm for noncompliance with local data-storage rules, which was unveiled in 2018 and mandated compliance within six months. The rules require payments firms to store all Indian transaction data within servers in the country.

In April, RBI restricted American Express and Diners Club from adding new customers, citing violations of the same rules.

Visa, Mastercard, and several other firms, as well as the U.S government, have previously requested New Delhi to reconsider its rules, which they have argued is designed to allow the regulator “unfettered supervisory access.”

Visa, Mastercard and American Express had also lobbied to either significantly change the rules or completely discard it.