SME Times News Bureau | 30 Jul, 2020
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday held a meeting with the
stakeholders of banks and NBFCs and discussed issues in the financial sector,
including credit growth and risk aversion.
The meeting largely talked about the vision and roadmap for the future.
A statement from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said that the crucial role
of the financial and banking system of supporting growth was discussed. It was
noted that the small entrepreneurs, SHGs and farmers should be motivated to use
institutional credit to meet their credit needs and grow.
"Each bank needs to introspect and take a relook at its practices to
ensure stable credit growth. Banks should not treat all proposals with the same
yardstick and need to distinguish and identify bankable proposals and to ensure
that they get access to funding on their merit and don't suffer in the name of
past NPAs," it said.
Risk aversion by banks has been a major concern of late as credit and liquidity
are the need of the hour amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Reserve Bank of India's latest Financial Stability Report said that
heightened risk aversion has pulled the overall credit growth rate of scheduled
commercial banks to 5.9 per cent on a year-on-year (y-o-y) in March 2020.
"Bank credit, which had considerably weakened during the first half of
2019-20, slid down further in the subsequent period with the moderation
becoming broad-based across bank groups," the report said.
During the discussion on Wednesday, the Prime Minister noted that the
government is firmly behind the banking system and is ready to take any steps
necessary to support it and promote its growth.
"Banks should adopt fintech like centralised data platforms, digital
documentation and collaborative use of information to move towards digital
acquisition of customers. This will help increase credit penetration, increase
ease for customers, lower costs for banks and also reduce frauds," the
statement said.
It was stressed that India has built a robust, low cost infrastructure which
enables every Indian to undertake digital transactions of any size with great
ease and banks and financial institutions should actively promote the use of
RUPAY and UPI among its customers.
Further, the Prime Minister also reviewed the progress of schemes like
emergency credit line for MSME, additional KCC cards, liquidity window for NBFC
and MFI.
"While it was noted that significant progress has been made in most
schemes, banks need to be proactive and actively engage with the intended
beneficiaries to ensure that the credit support reaches them in a timely manner
during this period of crisis," the statement said.