FM Nirmala Sitharaman set to review govt banks' financials on Monday

Loan recovery, over Rs 100 crore of bad loans to be assessed

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will chair a meeting of public sector banks (PSBs) on Monday to review their financial performance, asset quality and recoveries from bad loans.

The meeting will be attended by the State Bank of India (SBI) chairman, and managing directors (MD) and chief executive officers (CEO) of other public sector banks, an official said.

The review would involve assessment of the business performance of state-owned leners, credit growth, asset quality, recovery from bad loans, and review of non-performing assets (NPAs) of over Rs 100 crore, the official said. The centre will also evaluate capital raising plans of public sector lenders and efforts taken to improve investor relations.

This comes at a time when public sector banks have turned profitable and are looking to tap the markets for raising capital instead of relying on the government to infuse funds.

Through the Enhanced Access and Service Excellence (EASE 5.0) reforms, public sector banks have also been asked to focus on a three-year strategic roadmap, and emphasise on supporting small businesses and agriculture. The strategic roadmap for each PSB would focus on business growth, profitability, risk, customer service, operations, and capability building.

The review on Monday will also assess banks’ performance on financial inclusion and progress of various schemes of the centre. This would include functioning of accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, progress made in the schemes announced as a part of Atmamirbhar Bharat package such as the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund, Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development , Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises. A review of saturation drive of Kisan Credit Cards would also be undertaken.