India needs four-five SBI-size banks, says FM Nirmala Sitharaman

The finance minister also noted that some of the economically active regions of the country still lacked banking facilities

The country needs four-five banks of State Bank of India's size to cater to the changing and growing requirements in the post-pandemic world, said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday.

"Even before the pandemic, one of the driving forces for the amalgamation (in public sector banking space) was the need to scale-up banking. India needs a lot of banks but a lot more big banks," said Sitharaman, while addressing the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Indian Banks' Association (IBA) here. She, however, did not elaborate if further consolidation of public-sector banks was on the cards.

"The amalgamation is an important exercise