Finance Minister to meet PSU bankers today; here’s what’s on the agenda

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will meet with heads of various public sector undertaking (PSU) banks later today as part of her two-day visit to Mumbai.

On top of the agenda is a review of the annual financial performance of these public sector banks, which is routinely done each year. Other than this, CNBC-TV18 has learnt that several of these banks will be making presentations to the FM on topics that include the state of the economy, the credit growth seen in the past year and the steps that can be taken to deepen the credit growth in the economy in the coming year as well.

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Besides this, the FM will also be taking stock of the implementation of various government schemes that were announced in the past year including the likes of the emergency credit line guarantee scheme.

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It is also understood that the FM will be declaring the results of the EASE 3.0 index and will be launching the EASE 4.0 index as well. EASE stands for Enhanced Access and Service Excellence, which is aimed at institutionalising clean and smart banking. Public sector banks are ranked on the basis of various parameters. EASE 4.0 index will include things like co-lending with non-banks like non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), digital push, agricultural financing, technological resilience for 24X7 banking and so on. But more importantly, there will be a press conference that the FM is also scheduled to hold later today. So, comments coming from there will be watched as well.