Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the country needs big and world-class banks, and discussions are on with the Reserve Bank and lenders in this regard.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday allayed apprehension that privatisation of state-owned banks would hurt financial inclusion and national interest. She said the bank nationalisation done in 1969 has not yielded the desired result as far as financial inclusion was concerned.
A major reshuffle of top executives in 11 PSU banks is on the cards with the chairmen of Allahabad Bank, Corporation Bank, Syndicate Bank, Union Bank of India and Vijaya Bank slated to retire between March-July 2006.
Bank stocks took a hammering today as the Centre said it was not in its policy to take back its equity from public sector banks at par value.
A panel headed by RBI Governor selects PSU bank chiefs.
In the biggest consolidation exercise in the banking space, the government on Friday announced four major mergers of public sector banks, bringing down their total number to 12 from 27 in 2017, a move aimed at making state-owned lenders global sized banks.
Moody's Investors Service on Thursday downgraded subordinated debt ratings of 11 Indian banks, including SBI, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank.
As per the mega consolidation plan, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India will merge into Punjab National Bank (PNB); Syndicate Bank into Canara Bank; Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank into Union Bank of India; and Allahabad Bank into Indian Bank. Following this merger, PNB will become second largest after the SBI, Canara Bank fourth, Union Bank of India fifth and Indian Bank seventh biggest public sector lender.
The Reserve Bank has asked the public to pay their income tax dues well in advance so as to avoid standing in long queues and stated that 29 agency banks are also authorised to accept such payments.
The probe into selections for banks such as Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank followed the arrest of Syndicate Bank CMD S K Jain for alleged graft.
The move to make the appointment process more robust comes after last month's arrest of S K Jain, chairman and managing director of Syndicate Bank last month, over graft charges.
For the first time, PSU banks will have a non-executive chairman, giving operational responsibility to managing director and chief executive officer.
'Investors should not commit fresh money to these stocks right now, unless they can hold for the next three to four years.'
Addressing the 74th Annual General Meeting of the Indian Banks' Association (IBA), she said the industry needs to imagine how Indian banking has to be in the immediate and long-term future. As far as the long-term future is concerned, she said it is going to be largely driven by digitised processes and there is a need for seamless and interconnected digital systems for a sustainable future for the Indian banking industry.
According to experts, 'Lakshmi' and the logo 'Godesses Lakshmi' have a lot of value in India and are the biggest driver for the Bank. Retaining the Lakshmi name and logo will help DBS.
The finance ministry on Wednesday allowed all private sector banks to participate in government-related business, like collection of taxes. pension payments and small savings schemes. At the moment, only few large private sector are allowed to conduct government-related business.
Finance secretary Rajiv Kumar was positive in formation of a committee consisting all concerned to address the issues arising out of the proposed merger of 10 banks including preserving the identity of all the banks.
Amendments would be required in the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970 and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1980 for privatisation, sources said.
The post of chairman and managing director has been split and the government has appointed managing directors and chief executive officers in four banks -- Indian Overseas Bank, United Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Vijaya Bank.
The Central Vigilance Commission has penalised 130 government employees for their alleged involvement in corruption. Of these, 29 were Syndicate Bank officials, nine each were from Canara Bank and Punjab National Bank, eight from State Bank of India, seven from Bharat Coking Coal Limited and six each from State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur and Life insurance Corporation of India Limited.
Business is down to such an extent that last year these firms could not even meet RBI's capital norm of Rs 50 million for partnerships and Rs 100 million for public and private firms in this line of business.
The country's largest lender State Bank of India will get the largest sum of Rs 8,800 crore as government's capital infusion.
One hundred and thirty officials of different government departments were slapped with major penalty by the Central Vigilance Commission for their alleged involvement in corruption.
SBI, PNB, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Dena Bank, Central Bank of India ended down 3%-12% each.
Banks are also weighing the option of hiring experts for help in specialised areas.
Among other demands, the unions are also seeking immediate introduction of five-day week in full and reduction of cash transaction hours and regulated working hours.
Bank unions - officers and workmen - had buried their differences and sat across the table on August 29 to work out a fresh deal with the IBA involving a 20 per cent wage hike.
Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar takes a tour of banks in a Chennai suburb and finds that nothing has changed in one month since demonetisation.
The agency noted that the reviews of these banks' sub-debt ratings were not indication of any change in the affected banks' fundamental credit quality.
Banks have taken this aggressive posture even as liquidity has become comfortable on the back of increased government spending.
This is the first tranche of capital infusion for the fiscal and more funds would be provided in future depending upon the performance of PSU banks.
The RBI also looked into the effectiveness of systems and processes for implementation of KYC norms
Even under the RTI response, all public sectors banks have washed their hands of any responsibility.
Factors like dedicated recovery teams, centralised follow-up on bad loan accounts and resolutions via NCLT are driving the trend
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Bank stocks have underperformed in the second quarter of FY'14 with the BSE Bankex declining 18 per cent compared to fall of 1 per cent in the BSE 30-stock index, Sensex, during this period.
Of the total 53,334 cases of frauds reported during 2008-09 and 2018-19 fiscal years, involving a whopping Rs 2.05 lakh crore, a highest of 6,811 cases were reported by the ICICI Bank.
Bank CFOs may meet next week to discuss minimum public shareholding and takeover rule issues.
Over 25,600 cases of banking fraud reported up to December 21, 2017, says Minister RS Prasad.
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