Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister exhorted Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) to focus on increasing digitally active customers to supplement the government’s effort for greater digitalisation of the economy.
Finance Minister was here to review the financial performance of RRBs in the southern region.
During the meeting, Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi gave a presentation on various financial metrics of the RRBs.
Chairing the review meeting, Nirmala Sitharaman ask RRBs to continue their focus on the flagship schemes of the central government like Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, PM SVANidhi, Atal Pension Yojana, PM Jan Dhan Yojana, PM Mudra Yojana, Kisan Credit Cards (KCC), KCC Animal Husbandry & Fisheries, and many others and aim for their saturation.
Highlighting that the credit-deposit ratio, gross NPAs and provision coverage ratio (PCR) of Regional Rural Banks of the Southern region were better than the national average, Nirmala Sitharaman ask the RRBs and Sponsor Banks to improve the current and savings account (CASA) ratio.
Nirmala Sitharaman stress that better adoption of technology, loan management system and the core banking system should be done in a time-bound manner in the RRBs of the Southern region.
Nirmala Sitharaman said :
“RRBs should focus on increasing digitally active customers in line with the government’s effort to move towards greater digitalisation,”.
The Finance Minister also said that Sponsor Banks should map RRBs with MSME clusters and improve their presence in these clusters while devising innovative products for the MSMEs to serve them in a better way.
FM urge RRBs from the region to work closely with the RBI and state authorities concern to improve their physical presence across the state.
Finance Minister also underline the need for leveraging Account Aggregator Framework, especially for lending to the allied agricultural sectors like fisheries and animal husbandry, besides granting loans to street vendors under the PM SVANidhi scheme.
Secretary Finance Secretary of Tamil Nadu T Udhayachandran, Secretaries and senior officers from state Finance Ministries of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Puducherry and Karnataka were present at the meeting.
The managing directors and CEOs of State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Union Bank of India, Canara Bank, Indian Overseas Bank and NABARD also took part in the discussions.
As of now, the Centre holds 50% of RRBs, while 35% and 15% are with the concern sponsor banks and state governments, respectively.
In July, Finance Minister review the performance of RRBs in the northern region.
This was the second review meeting.
