Privatisation of PSBs is the need of the hour: FICCI

The fraud at Punjab National Bank (PNB) has raised concerns over the economic state of affairs at public sector banks triggering demands of privatization of public sector banks (PSBs). FICCI president Rashesh Shah urged the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to begin the process of bank privatisation in a phased manner.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18's Shereen Bhan, Rashesh Shah siad, " What we have seen is over the last 10-15 years, there has been requirement for periodic recapitalisation of the PSU banks. One of the reasons for that has been governance and risk management issues. When any shareholder or any owner of any institution needs to focus on governance and risk management, but when there are so many PSU banks, that bandwidths get stretched and gets diluted a lot. So it is very important to keep a few of them. I agree with employees that we need some good banks in the PSU universe. But a lot of them can be privatised."

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