Banks to play major role in making India developed nation: FM Sitharaman

PUNE: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the banking sector will have to play a crucial role in driving the agenda of making India a developed nation or Viksit Bharat by 2047.

The Finance Minister was speaking at an event here to mark the 90th Foundation Day of the Bank of Maharashtra, a public sector lender.

"Banks will have to play a crucial role in driving the agenda set by the Prime Minister and by your role, we are going to give greater momentum to achieving this dream," she said.

Sitharaman said banks will be required to give strong momentum to the infrastructure sector, ensure the availability of need-based funding to MSMEs, bring unbanked population under the ambit of formal banking channels, and help increase insurance penetration.

She noted that technology is changing the banking landscape as it provides a secure and easy-to-navigate digital banking experience to all customers.

However, she added that "you (banks) cannot have a digital system which somewhere gets hacked, and the entire system and the trust which is laid on it getting compromised. So you need to have a robust and resilient system for which every now and then you need to make sure that the firewalls are adequate, any emergency drill which you need to do, what if situation so you know to handle if there is an emergency in terms of digital insecure incidents".

The minister also highlighted the rising popularity of the UPI in driving digital payments, saying 45 per cent of all real-time digital payments globally take place in India.

The UPI is operational in seven countries, she added.