High-level committee on banking: What it should focus on to strengthen India’s financial system
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the formation of a “high-level committee" on banking in her budget speech for 2026-27. While she offered no details, the FM did say that this panel would be tasked with reviewing the banking sector and aligning it with India’s next phase of growth.
It is nobody’s argument that banking reforms are not overdue. The sector’s health reflects the state of the broader economy and there are enough signs of it being misaligned with the national ambition of achieving ‘developed’ status by 2047. There are problems in liquidity management, with liability management calling for a strategy revision.
The gap in governance between public and private sector banks has widened. Human resource policies for hiring, training and retention are outdated. Perverse incentive structures have led to a pile-up of consumer grievances.
And there are other issues that await redressal. Finance ministry officials have indicated that among other things, the committee will re-examine bank licensing norms—including whether to let corporate houses get them—and the possibility of another round of mergers among public sector banks (PSBs). Letting corporate houses run banks might be a bit premature at this stage, given the current volatility in geopolitics and geo-economics.
There are other reasons for caution: it could plausibly worsen uncertainty in the liabilities market and amplify risks to systemic stability. The banking industry’s credit-deposit ratio recently crossed the 81% mark and set off alarm bells. Banks are seeing a steady shift in deposits to alternate asset classes, with incremental deposit growth in a struggle to keep up with incremental credit.
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