Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today reviewed the performance of banks in a meeting attended by the top management of Public Sector Banks, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Citi Bank, along with RBI Deputy Governor N.S. Vishwanathan.
The meeting was the first in a series of consultations planned by the Finance Ministry with key stakeholders across sectors, including MSMEs, automobiles, real estate and financial markets, to address current economic challenges and support growth.
Discussions focused on strengthening credit growth, improving support for sectors such as MSMEs, automobiles and NBFCs, enhancing digital lending, and ensuring faster transmission of RBI rate cuts to borrowers.
Banks committed to expanding affordable and hassle-free credit, particularly for MSMEs and retail borrowers. The in-principle approval limit for contactless digital lending to MSMEs through the PSB59Minutes portal will be increased to ₹5 crore, with plans to extend the facility to personal, vehicle and home loans.
To support liquidity in the NBFC and housing finance sectors, banks agreed to continue leveraging co-origination models and make prudent use of the Government’s partial credit guarantee scheme for pooled asset purchases of up to ₹1 lakh crore.
Given the slowdown in automobile sales, banks also committed to increasing credit support for vehicle purchases. For MSMEs, lenders will focus on cash flow-based lending, faster restructuring of viable stressed units and new working capital products for service-sector enterprises.
On digitalisation, banks agreed to review charges on digital transactions, expand mobile and internet banking services, and offer more services in regional languages to improve customer access and convenience.
Issues related to service tax raised by banks were noted by the Government and will be examined further.
