Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday said banks, including private sector should embrace digitisation towards ensuring that government schemes reach the poor and downtrodden, besides adopting financial inclusion for a wider reach.
Delivering her address at the centenary celebrations of the Tamilnad Mercantile Bank in Thoothukudi, Sitharaman said even during COVID-19 pandemic with the use of digitisation through banking correspondents, the government’s financial disbursements were distributed to the needy after verifying their details.
“Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) was clearly aware that banking is important and did not hesitate that there can be accounts with zero balance, if they were opened under the Jandhan Yojana scheme (launched in 2014). But he ensured that everyone must hold a bank account and be able to transact through a RuPay card,” she said.
Hailing the TMB, Sitharaman said that the bank has set an example for Tamil Nadu banking sector. Moreover, the bank has adapted digitization and is moving in the right direction. Even before 2014, larger banks could not sustain because of huge NPAs and government allotted growth finance. Hence, banks need to focus all their energies on NPA recovery, she added.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman launched a unique TMB ‘postal stamp’ and specialized ‘postal card’ to mark the centenary celebrations of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank.
Besides, she also flagged off the ‘TMB Mobile Digi Lobby’ vehicle, ‘Aarogya India’ vaccination awareness campaign and TMB’s mobile vaccination drive in Thoothukudi on the occasion.
In his address, KV Rama Moorthy, Managing Director and CEO of TMB said, “TMB has always added value to all the stakeholders over the years. The bank has stood the test of time and seen various historical events like Independence, emergency, liberalization of the economy and most recently the COVID pandemic. To help borrowers overcome the adverse impact of COVID, the bank so far has covered 13,753 beneficiaries to the exposure of Rs 1,567.62 crore,” he said. In the era of digital banking, TMB was the first to introduce Robotics in currency chest to sort and bundle currencies in order to provide quality service to the customers, the CEO added.
