PSBS told to chart road map to drive biz growth
NEW DELHI: The finance ministry has asked public sector banks (PSBS) to draw up a three-year road map to prepare them for upcoming challenges and stay ahead of private rivals in this intensely competitive sector.
As part of the strategy, banks have been asked to capture emerging economic and technological business trends to drive future business growth and build specialized capabilities and competitive advantage over rivals.
This new round of banking reforms will seek to build upon a lengthy clean-up of the lenders’ balance sheets and a reduction in bad loans.
According to people aware of the development, each state-run lender would be given targets for business growth in specific markets, infrastructure finance and business sector opportunities. These targets would be continuously monitored, and their progress tracked to see that all objectives set at the beginning of a year proceed as planned.
The banks have been asked to set up a team of dedicated individuals in-house as well as external experts, including specialized institutions. This team will work with all banks, including guiding laggard banks to enable them to achieve their goals, the people said.
Along with dedicated internal groups in banks, the team will also identify strategic opportunities for each bank and enlist major challenges in pursuing such opportunities and regulatory constraints faced by the banks.
They will also identify targets to be achieved by each bank over three years and find areas and opportunities for banks to develop internal capabilities to continuously evaluate and prioritize upcoming business opportunities.
Queries emailed to the finance ministry and secretary, financial services, remained unanswered till press time on Friday evening.
This new round of banking reforms aims to ensure that progress made by the state-run lenders to correct their books over the past few years is sustained and they become more professional in handling their operations hereon.