Bank Mergers : A major move

NEW DELHI: Finance minister
Nirmala Sitharaman made a
series of announcements on
Friday to give fillip to the
banking and financial sector in
the country during a press
conference in the national
capital. Here are the highlights
of her address:

Punjab National Bank,
Oriental Bank of Commerce
and United Bank of India will
be merged to form the second
largest public sector bank with
business of around Rs 18 lakh
crore. The anchor bank will be
Punjab National Bank.

Canara Bank and Syndicate
Bank will be merged to form
the fourth largest public bank
with a business of Rs 15.20 lakh
crore. Union Bank of India,
Andhra Bank and Corporation
Bank will also be merged with
business of Rs 14.59 lakh crore.

Indian Bank will be merged
with Allahabad Bank. It will be
the seventh largest Public
Sector Bank with business of Rs
8.08 lakh crore

Number of Public Sector
Banks have come down to 12
from 27

Bank boards have been given
flexibility to fix sitting fee of
independent directors.

Partial credit guarantee
scheme for NBFCs has been
executed. Rs 3,300 crore
liquidity support has been
given and Rs 30,000 crore is in
the pipeline.

To prevent Nirav Modi like
frauds, SWIFT messages have
been linked to the core banking
system.

Gross bad loans of public
sector banks have come down
to Rs 7.9 lakh crore from Rs
8.65 lakh crore at December
end 2018