Use of Aadhaar to help in financial inclusion: Rajan

'BoB case will be pursued to the ultimate conclusion'

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan on Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court ruling on the use of Aadhaar cards in more schemes and said it would help in financial inclusion and provide easy access to loans.

“The ruling today will be quite helpful, making us use it in banking services. It will make it easier for financial inclusion,” Rajan told reporters after the central bank’s board meeting here.

“Unique Identification (UID) number  will ensure that people will not get multiple loans from different places. We can make sure that it does not happen. This is an example on how we can make more lending possible,” said Rajan, who was in the city for RBI’s 554th board meeting.

Speaking about the meeting, Rajan said the board discussed the state of the India’s  and global economy. “We discussed regulations, ombudsmen and Ponzi schemes. A wide variety of topics were discussed.”

RBI also announced merger of two funds to create a new financial inclusion fund with a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore to support ‘developmental and promotional activities’ for expanding reach of banking services.

Capital infusion
Rajan said RBI is working with the finance ministry to increase capital infusion in the banks. “The government had announced this to be Rs 25,000 crore. Some banks have got it and some will get it soon. It is almost done.”

Bad loans
Talking about the non-performing assets, Rajan said the central bank had given a lot of power to banks to recover bad loans. “Going forward, we will have close look on assets. The banks have to recognise the bad loans, bring all stakeholders into the table to resolve those and effectively monitor it for future.”

Bank of Baroda  scam
Expressing concern over the illegal Rs 6,000-crore transfer of funds through a Bank of Baroda branch, Rajan said it would be pursued both by the central bank and investigative agencies to the “ultimate conclusion” to ensure the guilty were made to “pay the price” for it.

He also said if not pursued quickly, such frauds created an atmosphere of impurity which then bred more such practices.

“We have created a whole new system for fraud alerts, fraud awareness among the banks. My hope is, going forward, we will pursue these frauds to the ultimate conclusion so that those who commit frauds do in fact pay the price for these,” he added.