Indian banks need to become more customer-friendly and ensure hassle-free loans, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Monday, even as the chief of the country’s largest lender State Bank of India promised to roll out a fully digital loan application system in two months to ease borrowers’ lot.
State Bank of India chairman Dinesh Khara, who was part of the audience at an industry interaction with the Minister on the Union Budget in the commercial capital, received a flurry of advice from the Finance Ministry top brass on easing access to credit, after a woman entrepreneur flagged the need for ‘hassle-free’ loans to budding businesses like hers.
Ms. Sitharaman directed the query to Mr. Khara, stating loans should be hassle-free for everybody and ‘more so for women’. “Our PM has said, in Mudra and Swanidhi (schemes), where the poorest of the poor are involved, he told banks look I am the security behind them, don’t ask for any security, give them the loans they want. And actually, the performance on the servicing of those loans has been good. Over and above that, Mr. Khara, the opportunity is yours,” she said.
