Sitharaman reviews performance of banks with top management

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who reviewed the performance of banks with the top management of public sector banks, said that the banks have been requested to sit with the stressed-asset MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) and work with them to get them out of the situation.

New Delhi: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday reviewed the performance of the banks in a meeting with the top management of the public sector banks.

"Finance Minister reviewed at length the implementation of series of measures, following extensive stakeholder consultations, announced since 23.8.2019, including consolidation, to support economic growth," a press statement said.

Discussion held on the performance of the banks was carried out with a focus on supporting the credit needs of the economy, in particular, the needs of sectors such as NBFCs, HFCs, MSMEs, sectors under stress and enabling better access to cheaper credit.

At the end of August 2019, overall credit growth in the banking sector stood at 10.1 per cent on a year-on-year basis, which is in parallel with record recoveries and cleaning of bank balance-sheets showing better quality of asset book, it said.

The Finance Minister was apprised that bank loan disbursement to key sector remains robust, with disbursement of Rs 11.83 lakh crore done for the MSME sector in FY 2018-19 as against Rs 8.53 lakh crore done in FY 2017-18.

Bank has also continued to support the housing sector by disbursing Rs. 2.19 lakh crore for home loans in FY 2018-19 as against Rs. 1.81 lakh crore in FY 2017-18.

Pool buy-out of NBFC/HFC post-Septemeber, 2018 till Sept 15- 2019 was Rs 93,018 crore, including Rs 9,155 crore under the newly launched partial credit guarantee scheme. Proposals of another Rs 33,200 crore under the new scheme are also in the pipeline.