Pranab asks banks to take belt tightening measures
January 6th, 2012 - 9:01 pm ICT by IANS
Chennai, Jan 6 (IANS) Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Friday asked Indian banks to scale down their advances to risky businesses to protect their asset quality.
“The non-performing assets (NPA) have grown faster than the credit. There is a need for banks to tighten their belt,” Mukherjee said, inaugurating the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) here.
According to the Reserve Bank of India’s latest Financial Stability Report, the year-on-year growth rate of NPAs stood at 30.5 per cent and slippages (fresh accretion to NPAs) grew at 92.8 per cent as of September 2011, with the priority sector, retail, real estate and infrastructure being major contributors.
He asked the banks to tread carefully as the sector is confronted with risks of global slowdown and market volatility.
Mukherjee said the Basel III norms would be implemented in India from 2013 onwards so as to bring the Indian banks on par with global standards.
Urging the banks to go for special drive for financial inclusion of the poor, Mukherjee said the exclusion of these people impacted social equity and economic growth.
He said the government would soon introduce an electronic payment system for direct credit of subsidies to the beneficiaries which would apart from ushering in transparency would speed up the subsidy payments.
Later, inaugurating Indian Bank’s new corporate office, Mukherjee said the government is committed to adequately capitalise all the public sector banks so that they could compete with the international banks.
- SIDBI may achieve 21 percent credit growth by March-end - Feb 10, 2012
- Public sector banks' NPAs rise to 2.31 percent - Aug 16, 2011
- Panel to clean up financial sector laws soon: Mukherjee - Nov 19, 2010
- SBI expects 22 percent credit, 15 percent deposit growth (Lead) - May 14, 2010
- IOB plans recovery of Rs.1,500 crore from sticky accounts (Lead) - Jan 28, 2012
- UBI Q4 net up 4 percent - May 05, 2012
- Pranab asks banks to improve asset quality - Jun 17, 2011
- Bill to help banks recover dues to be introduced in winter session - Oct 13, 2011
- Banks' non-performing assets may rise: Assocham - Aug 14, 2011
- Public sector banks will get adequate capital: Pranab (Lead) - Feb 19, 2012
- Pranab to review banks' performance - Jul 07, 2011
- Rs.140 bn capital infusion for public sector banks okayed - Nov 05, 2011
- Banks' non-performing assets up 26 percent - Nov 08, 2009
- UCO Bank's net up 22.35 percent in Q3 - Jan 28, 2011
- IOB targets 20 percent business growth in 2012-13 - May 05, 2012
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