To take a stock of the demonetisation drive, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently met chiefs of Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), State Bank of India (SBI) and Punjab National Bank (PNB) to discuss issues like impact on lending activity, bad loans and earning.
The meeting assumes significance given the restrictions imposed by the government on currency withdrawal and submission of old currency notes will come to an end on December 30.
Issues of diversion of cash from banks and other irregularities was also believed to have been discussed at the meeting.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 announced to scrap high denomination currency notes Rs 500 and 1,000 and asked people to deposit such defunct currencies by December 50 leading to huge rush at bank branches.
According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), banks had got deposits of Rs 12.4 lakh crore defunct notes by December 10.
The central bank has infused Rs 5.92 lakh crore in the banking system between November 9 and December 19 against Rs 15.4 lakh crore of scrapped notes.
