Banking network should cover villages: Pranab

New Delhi, Jul 19: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said, "although the banking network has rapidly expanded, the key challenge would be to extend the banking coverage to the large population living in 6 lakh villages," on Monday, Jul 19 at New Delhi.

Addressing at the Financial Inclusion Summit, organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, Pranab told, "the system, which demonstrated its resilience in the face of the recent global financial crisis, should adopt strong and urgent measures to reach the unbanked segment of society and unlock their savings and investment potentials."

He added that while 80 percent of the public sector banks have already adopted the core banking solutions (CBS), steps are being taken to carry the remaining 20 percent public sector banks to adopt CBS.

However, Mukherjee laid emphasis on the adoption of new technologies for promoting financial inclusion and said that bans need to come up with a definite financial inclusion plan.

Mukherjee urged the private sector to support physical products like devices, software training, so that this can help to built a large number of manpower and develop a business plan to tap the local talent that exists in the rural areas.

Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, in his closing remarks said that CII is bringing financial and technology players work closely to realize the goal of financial inclusion.

OneIndia News