PM Modi to hold review meeting with banks, his first since Covid outbreak

Agenda not known yet, but meeting via video conferencing likely to be on credit flow especially to MSMEs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to hold a meeting with the chief executives of state-owned and private banks on Wednesday.

This is the first meeting that the Prime Minister (PM) is going to hold with the brass of financial institutions after the Covid-19 pandemic. The meeting will be held through video conferencing, a bank executive said.

“The agenda of the meeting hasn’t been circulated yet. But it is expected that the PM will discuss credit flow to the economy, especially the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and map the progress of the government’s Covid-19 package,” another bank executive said, requesting anonymity.

A finance ministry official said that the announcements of the government so far relied heavily on restarting economic activities with the help of financial institutions and the PM wants to take stock of the progress. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is also expected to attend the meeting.

Apart from major public sector banks, top executives of some private lenders such as Kotak Mahindra Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and the Indian Banks’ Association are also expected to be present in the meeting on Wednesday.

Earlier in June, Sitharaman had held separate meetings - one with PSBs and the other with private banks and non-banking financial companies. The FM had discussed ways in which the Rs 3 trillion Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme could be effectively implemented for the MSME sector. She had also urged the state-owned banks to go for better interest rate transmission.

On Monday, Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das had said in a public event that bank should raise money proactively and build up adequate capital buffers, along with urging the corporates to look beyond banks to fund infrastructure projects.