FM to hold first meeting with heads of PSU banks

Although the main agenda for the meeting is the financial inclusion, other issues like lowering of interest rate may also be discussed

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is scheduled to hold his first meeting with all the heads of the public sector banks on July 31 and is expected to impress upon them the need to lower interest rates for boosting growth.

"The Finance Minister would be meeting heads of banks on July 31 to push financial inclusion agenda announced in the Budget," said a source.

Although the main agenda for the meeting is the financial inclusion, other issues like lowering of interest rate, bad loans, credit to farm sector and financial performance may come up for the meeting, sources added.

In the Budget 2014-15 speech Jaitley had said: "To provide all households in the country with banking services, a time bound programme would be launched as Financial Inclusion Mission on 15 August this year.

"It would particularly focus to empower the weaker sections of the society, including women, small and marginal farmers and labourers. Two bank accounts in each household are proposed to be opened which will also be eligible for credit," he had said.

In order to make this mission a success, Department of Financial Services is organising an exhibition on August 11 to understand the available technologies to provide last mile financial services for bank accounts opening, card issuance and for providing online transaction services.

It has been estimated that about 15 crore accounts would be needed to cover all households under the plan.

The plan envisages a comprehensive coverage of all excluded households in the country by a six pillar approach including Universal access to banking facility, micro insurance and providing basic banking accounts with overdraft facility and RuPay Debit card with inbuilt accident insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh.