Purvanchal Sabha, an association of migrants has lodged a complaint with Reserve Bank of India that they are being discriminated by banks in Punjab. The complaint said that banks have set specific counters for them and also allotted special days and timings when they can come for banking transactions. The major reason cited for this is that other customers do not want to mingle with them.

There are lakhs of migrants who leave home and come for work in far flung areas. They use banks mostly the nationalised ones to send money back home. Banks put their stand saying that special counters have been opened for them so as to help the illiterate folk but migrants are taking the step as bias against them.

However, an official of a SBI branch said, "The migrants do not have any manners, squat on the floor to fill forms, chew tobacco all the time and are at times very dirty." So unofficially, banks try to keep them aside from normal customers for the betterment of business.

Migrant workers mostly prefer to work with State Bank of India. Apart from this, Punjab National Bank, Allahabad Bank, Union Bank of India, UCO bank and Bank of Baroda are some of the other preferred banks.