INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman | (Photo: PTI)2 min read Last Updated : Sep 19 2024 | 6:16 PM IST
Finance Minister Nirmala
Sitharaman on Thursday said the banking sector will have to play a crucial role in driving the agenda of making India a developed nation or
Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The Finance Minister was speaking at an event here to mark the 90th Foundation Day of the Bank of Maharashtra, a
public sector lender.
"Banks will have to play a crucial role in driving the agenda set by the Prime Minister and by your role, we are
going to give greater momentum to achieving this dream," she said.
Sitharaman said banks will be required to give strong momentum to the
infrastructure sector, ensure the availability of need-based funding to MSMEs, bring unbanked population under the ambit of formal banking
and easy-to-navigate digital banking experience to all customers.
However, she added that "you (banks) cannot have a digital system which
somewhere gets hacked, and the entire system and the trust which is laid on it getting compromised
So you need to have a robust and resilient system for which every now and then you need to make sure that the firewalls are adequate, any
emergency drill which you need to do, what if situation so you know to handle if there is an emergency in terms of digital insecure
incidents".
The minister also highlighted the rising popularity of the UPI in driving digital payments, saying 45 per cent of all
real-time digital payments globally take place in India.
The UPI is operational in seven countries, she added.(Only the headline and
picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated
feed.)First Published: Sep 19 2024 | 6:16 PMIST
