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Nearly 72 % Of Financial Transactions Of PSBs Done Through Digital Channels: MoS Finance

PSBs have recovered an amount of Rs 4.52 lakh crore during the past five financial years from defaulters in NPA and written-off accounts, and have made aggregate recovery of Rs 20,334 crore from wilful defaulters till March 2021

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The government on Tuesday said nearly 72 per cent of financial transactions of public sector banks (PSBs) are now done through digital channels, with customers active on digital channels having doubled from 3.4 crore in 2019-20 to 7.6 crore in 2020-21.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has informed that it is not considering a separate licensing category for digital banks at present, Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat K Karad said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

PSBs have recovered an amount of Rs 4.52 lakh crore during the past five financial years from defaulters in NPA and written-off accounts, and have made aggregate recovery of Rs 20,334 crore from wilful defaulters till March 2021, Karad said in another reply.

On the impact of the scheme, the minister stated that an independent impact assessment study was undertaken during 2019-20.

Based on findings of the study, consultation with stakeholders and pursuant to an announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget Speech for 2021-22, the margin money requirement for loans under the scheme has been reduced from 'up to 25 per cent' to 'up to 15 per cent' and activities allied to agriculture have also been included in the scheme, he said.

In response to a separate question, Karad said that more than 1.17 lakh loans amounting to more than Rs 26,391 crore have been sanctioned to SC/ST and woman borrowers under the StandUp India Scheme, which has created employment for over 6 lakh people.

In reply to another question, Karad said there are 256 operational central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) as on March 31, 2020, with a total annual turnover of Rs 24,61,712 crore.

Out of these, 171 CPSEs are profit-making with a profit of Rs 1,38,112 crore, the minister stated.

Based on the information provided by the Navaratna CPSEs for 2020-21, the minister stated that the performance in terms of profit after tax has shown improvement over the previous year in respect of most of the Navaratna CPSEs, he said.

On reining in the expenditure, the minister stated that as per information furnished by the Navaratna CPSEs a number of them are relying on use of virtual mode/ IT tools/services for reducing cost in recruitment process.

There is no reported reduction of workforce as cost-cutting measures, he added.

(PTI)