Banks must focus on core areas: FM at RBI meet

When responding to sharp reporters’ questions after the typical post-budget meeting with the central board of RBI, FM stated that she would soon assess the banking sector.

New Delhi: The Indian finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman spoke to banks on Saturday, concerning herself with slackness in the banks’ core business of lending and deposit taking and pointed out the need to balance lending and deposit mobilization by following what she described as old fashioned wisdom of enticing depositors in various ways and implementing the same.

She stated deposits and lending as a wheel barrow, with lending as a wheel that is moving faster than the deposit. Speaking to reporters after the annual head post-budget meeting with the central board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in New Delhi, Ms Sitharaman said that she would shortly discuss the report on the banking sector based on its performance in regard to the various subjects including the inauguration of new schemes of federal government and the priority-sector lending.

They also pointed at the deposit-lending mismatch in the banking sector and sounded a warning to the banks, although the ceiling and floor on both lending and deposit rates had been removed earlier.

Talking on the occasion, the Governor, Reserve Bank of India, Shaktikanta Das said that in order to retrieve the unclaimed amounts, the banks are set to start a campaign soon. In fact, even in the similar drive that was launched last year, every branch based on the number of unclaimed deposits that were pending proactively settled top 10 such cases by identifying the right person, said Sreekanth.