PSU banks hold ideation round

Mumbai: Under directions from the Finance Ministry, the state-owned banks, from State Bank of India to UCO Bank, embarked on a month-long consultative exercise with all their branches for preparing a road map for the future growth of the banking sector. The first round of the bottom-up ideation exercise that began on Saturday and ended on Sunday is aimed at streamlining the banking sector to help the nation become a $ 5-trillion economy in five years.

The primary objective of the meeting is to identify and finalise ways and means to increase credit to various sectors of the economy, enhance use of technology to bring about innovation and enable big data analytics, and make banking citizen-centric as well as more responsive to the needs and aspiration of senior citizens, farmers, small industries, enterprises, youth, students and women, according to the discussion points of the Finance Ministry.

SBI conducted meetings at 502 regional Business Offices spread across 17 circles in which over 15,000 officers participated over the past two days.

In Mumbai, at SBI's Regional Business Office, the discussion session was attended by Arjit Basu, Managing Director (Corporate Client Group & IT) and other senior officials of the bank while Chairman Rajnish Kum-ar met branch managers in the Kolkata region.

SBI collectively identified many adoptable and innovative suggestions which can help improve the bank’s performance and establish a future road map. These suggestions were collated and have been sent to the regional/zonal level for further discussions at the state level, along with comparative performance assessment of the branches under each region. Later, bank has decided to take final consultation at the national level to compare both intra and inter-bank performances and to finalise the suggestions regarding the way ahead for implementation across PSBs, said SBI in a statement.

Union Bank of India MD Rajkiran Rai G said, "I strongly believe that this bottom-up consultative process will provide a platform for field personnel to represent and bring forward the grass-root level challenges in their respective areas.”

All other leading lenders, including Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Andhra Bank, Syndicate Bank and Indian Overseas Bank held meetings across the country.

Many suggestions have come with regard to making banking citizen-centric as well as more responsive to the needs and aspirations of senior citizens, farmers, small industries, entrepreneurs, youth, students and women, IOB said.