Parliament on Thursday paved the way for corporate houses to enter the banking sector by approving the banking bill, a key reform legislation pending for long.
Parliament also passed the amendments to the debt recovery laws or Sarfesi law after a reply by Finance Minister P Chidambaram on the combined discussion on the two bills in Rajya Sabha.
These two Bills -- Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2012, and Enforcement of Security Interest and Recovery of Debts Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2012, -- he said, will strengthen the financial sector and help in establishing large-sized banks, besides promoting financial inclusion.
“We need 2-3 world-sized banks. China has three among the world’s top 20. We have none. We need more banks,” he said.
“Banks have opened 6,489 branches in 2011-12 alone, that is around 18-19 per day. We don’t have the capacity to open more branch. We need banks,” he said.
The Lok Sabha had already passed these two Bills. Mr. Chidambaram said the amendment was not intended to give banking licences to big corporate houses alone, but also to allow eligible public sector entities to enter the sector.
The Banking Bill was approved by the Lower House earlier this week after the government dropped the controversial clause concerning allowing banks to trade in commodity futures.
Referring to today’s strike by bank unions against reforms, Mr. Chidambaram said he could only request the bank employees to refrain from such activities.
Keywords: Parliament session, Winter session, P. Chidambaram, Banking Bill, Rajya Sabha, Lok Sabha
With RBI's senseless restriction in Account opening and worst customer service and inertia of Indian Banks discouraging customers. For example, I mailed a query about one month back to SBI, NRI customer dept. Till today, there is no response. They insist on Indian Address with proof, even NRIs who are away from country for over 10years! Moreover all proofs need to be attested by Indian Embassy/ Notary/ someone known to Bank, they say, to shy away the customers. If we question the standard answer we get is "RBI rules are like that, what can we do?"
Private Banks see NRIs as milking cows. Minimum Balance for NRI account is 25,000Rs in Pvt. Banks, where as it is 1000Rs in SBI(SBI customer service is worst, as expected).Unless attitude of Banks change, they can't compete with foreign banks. RBI's rules are rediculous.
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