NEW DELHI, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- India's finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman Thursday said the country needs a lot of big and world-class banks, and discussions were on with the central banking institution -- Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and lenders in this regard.
The finance minister made the comments during the 12th State Bank of India (SBI) Banking and Economy Conclave in Mumbai.
SBI is India's largest state-owned bank.
Sitharaman said the consolidation of existing public sector banks can also be one of the routes to create bigger banks.
"It is not by creating from among those which exist today just by amalgamation. That can also be one of the route, but you need an ecosystem and also an environment in which more banks can operate and operate to grow, so that environment is actually well established in India," she said.
India has already seen two major waves of mergers of public sector banks. In 2017, SBI absorbed its associate banks, and later in 2019 and 2020, 10 such lenders were merged into four larger entities. Those moves reduced the number of state-run banks to 12 from 27. ■
