The Finance Ministry has held a discussion with leading PSU banks to explore the possibility of creating a few large banks through mergers and acquisitions.
Heads of five PSU major banks--Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Union Bank of India and Oriental Bank of India--attended the meeting called by Additional Secretary GC Chaturvedi last night here.
"It was a pure consultation meeting where views were put together on what are the challenges or issues in bank consolidation. One view was that on the lines of the Narasimham Committee report, it is better to have four large banks in the country that have international presence," said Union Bank of India Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) M V Nair.
It is also learnt that banks supported the idea of greater size and scale to meet the growing fund requirements of corporate India for overseas acquisitions.
"If it happens (consolidation), it will be for the good of the industry. Consolidation will lead to banks with bigger size and scale in the country. However, it should be looked at on a case-to-case basis," said Bank of Baroda CMD M D Mallya.
Canara Bank CMD AC Mahajan said: "We have given our views. They are interested to know what are the issues likely to arise. We have shared with them what are the issues."