Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a series of announcements to give fillip to the banking and financial sector in the country during a press conference in the national capital. Here are the highlights of her address-
-> Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India will be merged to form the second-largest public sector bank with the business of around Rs 18 lakh crore. The anchor bank will be Punjab National Bank.
-> Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank will be merged to form the fourth-largest public bank with a business of Rs 15.20 lakh crore.
->Union Bank of India, Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank will also be merged with business of Rs 14.59 lakh crore.
->Union Bank of India, Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank will also be merged with business of Rs 14.59 lakh crore.
-> Indian Bank will be merged with Allahabad Bank. It will be the seventh-largest Public Sector Bank with business of Rs 8.08 lakh crore.
-> Number of Public Sector Banks have come down to 12 from 27.
-> Bank boards have been given flexibility to fix sitting fee of independent directors.
-> Partial credit guarantee scheme for NBFCs has been executed. Rs 3,300 crore liquidity support has been given and Rs 30,000 crore is in the pipeline.
-> To prevent Nirav Modi like frauds, SWIFT messages have been linked to the core banking system.
-> Gross bad loans of public sector banks have come down to Rs 7.9 lakh crore from Rs 8.65 lakh crore at December-end 2018.
-> Gains are visible from reforms in PSBs as 14 of them reported profit in first quarter of 2019-20.
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