Govt announces merger of several public sector banks

In a major development, the government on Friday announced merger of Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank with Punjab National Bank.

Also, Syndicate Bank will be merged with Canara Bank, while Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank will merged with Union Bank of India.

Besides, Indian Bank will be merged with Allahabad Bank, making it the seventh largest state-owned bank.

These announcements were made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Objective of the mergers, she said is to make them global sized banks.

In January this year, the Union Cabinet had approved merger Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Baroda. The merger came in to effect from April 1.

With these mergers, the number of PSBs will come down to 12 from 27 in 2017.

Prior to this, the government had merged five associate banks of SBI and Bharatiya Mahila Bank with State Bank of India.

These were State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Travancore and State Bank of Hyderabad and also Bharatiya Mahila Bank effective April 2017.