Govt starts work to make regional banks viable; DFS to organise workshop

The government is also nudging operationally sound RRBs to explore listing on the stock exchanges, creating additional sources to meet their regulatory capital requirement

The Centre has started working on making regional rural banks (RRBs) viable, and would undertake stakeholder consultation to discuss ways to turnaround such lenders on Saturday.

The Department of Financial Services (DFS) is organising a workshop, to be chaired by Secretary Sanjay Malhotra, which will be attended by chairman of all regional lenders and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard); chief executive officer of Indian Banks Association (IBA), and sponsor banks.

Sponsor banks own 35 per cent in RRBs, while the Centre and state governments own 50 per cent, and 15 per cent, respectively.

The workshop will formulate a viability plan