Draft guidelines on granting new banking licences are likely to be released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) within the next 15-20 days with the Finance Ministry holding consultations with apex bank officials on a ‘ day-to-day' basis for its approval.
Disclosing this to the media here on Thursday, Financial Services Secretary Shashikant Sharma said: “Very soon, we will have a final discussion with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the draft and then we can go ahead and give a green signal to it”.
While the RBI is expected to release the draft norms “in the next 15-20 days”, Mr. Sharma said that comments would be invited from stakeholders on the draft before the final guidelines were notified.
In his budget speech for the current fiscal, Mr. Mukherjee had announced that the RBI had plans to issue guidelines for grant of new banking licences by March 31.
As things stand now, it appears that the banking licence norms may be finalised even as the proposed banking law amendments aimed at extending more powers to the RBI are yet come into effect.
Introduced in the Lok Sabha during the budget session this year, the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2011, seeks to extend voting rights to investors in proportion to their shareholding in private sector banks.
It also proposes empowering the RBI to supersede the board of banks for a period of up to one year and appoint an administrator.
As for the norms for bank mergers, the Bill provides that no approval will be required from the anti-monopoly watchdog, Competition Commission of India, and clearance from the RBI will be sufficient for the purpose.
The likely corporates toying with entry in to the traditional banking sector are said to be entities such as Reliance Capital, India Bulls, Religare, IFCI and Aditya Birla Financial Services.
