The minister also asked banks not to hire customer facing people for those who cannot speak the local language.
“Money has been recovered from fraudulent accounts which were almost abandoned. I want to say that no fraudulent account will be left without going to court. There is no place for fraudsters in this country and they should be given a ride to the banks. We will purify every rupee and ensure that it comes back to the bank accounts,” Sitaraman said.
He pulled up the banks for not having enough staff speaking the local language in the branches.
“The staff can’t expect everyone to speak Hindi. I want to speak a strong language in it. We can’t
Hiring employees who do not speak the local language. Banks cannot ask people who do not speak Hindi to move away. You should review the people posted at the branch level and weed out those who cannot speak the local language. This underscores the importance of the country’s diversity. It shows inclusivity to both your employees and customers,” she said.
Banks are important in the government’s vision of making India a developed nation by 2047 and credit will have to be increased as spending capacity improves.
“CVC (Central Vigilance Commission), CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) and CBI ,central bureau) has been addressed. You are in a better position now. I want you to be more effective and proactive and let customers know you’re ready for them.”
Earlier addressing the Bankers Department of Financial Services Secretary Sanjay Malhotra Said that banks will have to extend their credit to industry and medium and small enterprises (MSMEs) to revive investment in the economy.
“Credit to industry has declined in the last few years. The share of bank credit to industry has come down from 42% to 26% in the last ten years. MSME credit is also important as this sector makes up 1/3rd of the economy. and has only one 16% stake in Credit,” Malhotra said.
He asked private sector banks to increase their contribution to central government schemes like Jan Dhan accounts, PMJDY and Atal Pension Yojana, in which their contribution is only between 3% to 7%.
Finance Minister Sitharaman said that bank systems will have to communicate with each other while ensuring that their systems are safe from hacking or cyber threats.
“IBAs should ensure that the systems of all banks communicate with each other like the Account Aggregator (AA) system, which allows institutions to communicate with each other with the explicit consent of the customer,” he said.
AA is an RBI-regulated non-banking financial company (NBFC) that facilitates the collection and use of financial information of customers from financial institutions after obtaining the consent of the customers. The AA system is expected to eliminate duplicity and speed up financial transactions by sharing information among various financial intermediaries.