India’s credit availability ranking jumps to 22 from 44 in 2 years
19 Dec 2018
India’s global ranking in “Getting Credit” improved from 44 in 2016 to 22 in 2018, as per the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. This has been achieved by unprecedented reforms in the banking sector that helped increase access to banking services for the common man, from home and mobile through digital banking and enhanced customer ease.
The government’s Jan Dhan programme has achieved unprecedented financial inclusion, enabling millions previously unbanked customers to open bank accounts (about 334.6 million such accounts have been opened as of 5 December 2018, with total balance of about Rs84,800 crore).
Opening of Jan Dhan accounts has also helped users to receive government subsidies (as DBT) and to access remittances, credit, insurance, and essentially being included financially,
The reforms have also helped increase availability of loans up to Rs10 lakh to the non-corporate, non-farm small/micro enterprises under Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY), wherein a borrower can approach any of the lending institutions or can apply online through portal. (during FY 2017-18, 48.1 million loans were sanctioned and in the current financial year, as on 7 December 2018, 28.1 million loans MUDRA loans have been sanctioned, minister of state for finance Shiv Pratap Shukla stated in a written reply in the RajyaSabha on Tuesday.
Leveraging of technology tools by financially and strengthened banks has helped increase lending to MSMEs through time-bound automated processing and transparent status-tracking. The use of digitalised bank statements and income-tax and GST returns have facilitated in-principle loan sanctioning within 59 minutes, and help meet production credit requirements of the farmers in a timely and hassle-free manner by introducing RupayKisan Credit Card.
The government announced a Rs2,11,000 crore recapitalisation programme for public sector banks (PSBs) in October 2017, through infusion of capital and raising of capital by banks from the markets. The government infused Rs88,139 crore in PSBs during financial year (FY) 2017-18 after the recapitalisation announcement and a provision of Rs65,000 crore has been made in the budget for the current financial year for infusion.
Since the announcement of the recapitalisation programme announcement, PSBs have been recapitalised to the tune of Rs1,28,861crore, through infusion and mobilisation of capital from the market, till November 2018.
Bank-wise details of capital infusion by the government in FY 2017-18 and current FY 2018-19 (up to 30 November 2018) show Punjab National Bank received the highest amount of Rs13,720 crore, followed by IDBI Bank (Rs12,471 crore), Bank of India (Rs9,232 crore), State Bank of India (Rs8,800 crore), Central Bank of India (Rs7,512 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs6,851 crore), UCO Bank (Rs6,507 crore), Allahabad Bank (Rs6,344 crore), Bank of Baroda (Rs5,473 crore), Canara Bank (Rs4,865 crore), Corporation Bank (Rs4,742 crore), Union Bank of India (Rs4,524 crore), Andhra Bank (Rs3,909 crore), Oriental Bank of Commerce (RS3,571 crore), Syndicate Bank (Rs3,567 crore), Bank of Maharashtra (Rs3,173 crore), Dena Bank (Rs3,045 crore), United Bank of India (Rs2,634 crore), Vijaya Bank (Rs1,277 crore) and Punjab and Sind Bank (Rs785 crore).