Budget 2018: Banking sector hopeful of positive reforms

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday increased the disinvestment target to Rs. 80,000 crore for the financial year 2018-19, after which many banking institutions roped in their comments.

Chief Economist, Bank of Baroda, Sameer Narang said, "Union Budget will go a long way in stimulating the rural and farm economy in FY19. At the same time, indirect tax collections have been pegged to increase by 19.2 percent led by higher compliance and improved GST collections."

"Fiscal deficit of 3.3 percent in FY19 is slightly higher than our estimate of 3.2 percent of GDP and which will result in net borrowings of Rs4.62tn (slightly higher than this year's Rs4.59tn). Overall, we continue to believe that GDP growth will inch up to 7.5 percent in FY19 on the back of higher exports and government spending on rural and infra sectors," added Narang.

Similarly, Chairman SBI, Rajnish Kumar said, "A very comprehensive budget comprising key measures that would have a positive impact on various segments including tenant farmers, 10 crore poor families, senior citizens, among others. Combined with these, the idea of a national gold policy and integration of the TReDS platform with GSTN for the SME are all significant policy changes aimed at transforming the overall economy."

He added that further, retaining net market borrowings for FY'19 at almost the same level as in the current year will compensate for higher fiscal deficit envisaged in the budget. Overall, we believe all these measures will augur well for meaningful growth in FY'19.

However, CEO India, Standard Chartered Bank, Zarin Daruwala believes that the Budget has taken in a wide-angle view, attending to the 'Aam Aadmi' of the country.

"The outreach it has managed to achieve cutting across the spectrum - rural and infra sectors, MSME, salaried, and retired classes - while staying on course with fiscal consolidation has struck a fine balance between the needs of growth, social development, and investor confidence which is a commendable achievement in my view," said Daruwala.