Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman today announced four bank mergers, a consolidation exercise started in 2017 that has brought the number of pubc-sector banks down from 27 to 12.
- Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank will merge to form India's second largest bank. Its business size will be Rs 17.94 lakh crore.
- Canara Bank will merge with Syndicate Bank to create the fourth largest public sector bank with a Rs 15.20-lakh crore business.
- Union Bank, Andhra Bank, Corporation Bank will merge to become the fifth largest with a Rs 14.59-lakh crore business.
- Indian Bank and Allahabad Bank will become the seventh largest bank with a business size of RS 8.08 lakh crore.
The previous BJP-led government in 2018 had merged Bank of Baroda with Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank. In 2017, the State Bank of India merged five associate banks and the Bharatiya Mahila Bank.
Tdday's was the biggest consolidation exercise in the banking space by the government.
Sitharaman said said the banks will be provided adequate capital.
Last week, she had announced that the Rs 70,000 crore capital infusion for public-sector banks for the current fiscal would be front-loaded.
Financial services secretary Rajiv Kumar, who was present at the news conference, said there was no retrenchment in the past consolidations, including of SBI, and service conditions of employees improved. 'Employees will only benefit with the mergers,' he said.