Finance ministry asks state-run banks to focus on high quality savings, current accounts: Reports

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

The Finance Ministry has asked Public Sector Undertaking (PSUs)  to focus on high quality savings and current bank accounts while ensuring stickiness in deposits, said sources according to a report.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the meeting to review the performance of Public Sector Banks on various financial, efficiency, and health parameters on March 25, 2023.

Citing sources, CNBC-TV18 said the finance ministry advised PSUs to focus more on granular deposits than on bulk and corporation deposits.

Further, the ministry asked to monitor that Government Securities (G-Secs) shares are in conformity with RBI Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) requirement.

The PSU Banks were also told to leverage credit growth for higher share of quality advances, said the sources.

Also read | Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman chairs meeting with Public Sector Banks

The report stated that PSUs were advised to adopt EASE 5.0 recommendations for mature, comprehensive stress tests. Banks were also told to create a crisis response playbook to manage the narrative and conduct proper monitoring and provisioning for pledged shares.

The advisory further noted that PSUs were required to manage overall exposure to corporate, which included pledged shares. The report stated that the advisory also included a need for greater implementation of risk-based pricing models.

Desist from discretionary pricing and follow risk ratings, said the Finance Ministry's in its advisory, according to the sources, while adding "improve interest rate transmission, more External Benchmark Linked Lending Rate (EBLR) linked lending".

After the meeting with chiefs of state-run banks in New Delhi on Saturday, the finance ministry asked them to identify stress points, including "concentration risks and adverse exposures," according to a government statement cited by Reuters.

The collapse of some U.S. regional banks have led to concerns about lenders globally having to field possible losses on their held-to-maturity portfolios.

India's banking system continues to be stable and resilient, and lenders have built sufficient buffers to shield themselves from any unforeseen stress, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India said earlier in March.