The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has sought a "transparent debate" on the issue of mega mergers in public sector banks. | |
| "We do not subscribe to the view that has come through the media and will oppose it through serious agitation programmes, including strike without prior notice, in the event the merger proposal is given effect," Ashok Datta, UFBU convenor (Bengal circle), said. |
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| The UFBU will stage a demonstration tomorrow in Kolkata and at all district headquarters and important city centres to oppose the move. |
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| Datta said the programme also included meeting the local authorities of Bank of India, Union Bank, Indian Banks Association and Reserve Bank of India on joint deputation, besides approaching the members of Parliament for this purpose. |
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| "Sometimes it is said merger of banks with good network in different parts of the country will help the new entity to come out of geographical barriers, while rationale is sometimes in favour of merger of a strong bank with a weak er one," he said. |
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| A study conducted by UFBU on the size of multinational banks suggested that even if all the 19 nationalised banks be merged, the asset size would touch only $ 200,471.88 million while the State Bank group's asset would would be close to $119,403.72 million. |
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| This number was no where close to asset sizes of a single multinational bank. HSBC's asset size was close to $276,793 million while, ABN Amro's would be around $ 667,636 million. Deutsche Bank's asset size would be around $10,14,845 million, one of the highest amongst the larger multinational banks. |
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| A comparison of Tier-I capital of the 19 PSB's, which stood at $ 2,965 million, suggested that the bank with the smallest Tier-I capital among multinational banks was even larger at $ 9,348 million "" for Bank of Montreal. |
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| "Even if all Indian banks were mergerd they would not be in a position to match the financial muscle of even of one of multinational banks," explained Datta. |
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