NEW DELHI: The Centre will pursue more mergers in the state-run banking space as the aim is to have a handful of strong and bigger banks of international level, finance minister Arun Jaitley has said. "Today banking is not what it used to be 10-20 years ago… Is it necessary to have 30-32 public sector banks, some of them weak? Obviously not. What will you do with weak banks," he said on DD News.
"We have merged five subsidiaries of SBI and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank with SBI. I have announced that we want fewer banks but bigger and stronger banks which can be of international level. In the coming days most probably we will move faster in this direction," Jaitley said. The government has expressed its intention of consolidation in the public sector banking space against the backdrop of the mountain of bad loans.
The Bharatiya Mahila Bank and five associates lender merged with the State Bank of India (SBI) on April 1, pushing the country’s largest lender among the top 50 banks globally.
State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ), State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH), State Bank of Mysore (SBM), State Bank of Patiala (SBP) and State Bank of Travancore (SBT), besides Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB), merged with SBI.
The total customer base of the bank will reach 37 crore with a branch network of around 24,000 and nearly 59,000 ATMs across the country. The new entity will have deposits of over Rs 26 lakh crore and advances level of Rs 18.50 lakh crore.
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