Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman | (Photo: PTI)
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 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 through their role, we will give a further impetus to achieving this dream,” he said.
Sitharaman said banks will be required to give a strong push to the infrastructure sector, ensure availability of need-based financing to MSMEs, bring the unbanked population into the ambit of formal banking channels and help increase insurance penetration.
He noted that technology is changing the banking landscape by providing a secure and easy-to-navigate digital banking experience for all customers.
However, he added that “you cannot allow a digital system to be hacked at some point and the whole system and the trust placed in it to be compromised. That is why you need to have a robust and resilient system, which means making sure that firewalls are adequate from time to time, and that you run emergency drills, hypothetical situations to know how to act if an emergency occurs in terms of digital insecurity incidents.”
The minister also highlighted the growing popularity of UPI in boosting digital payments, saying that 45 per cent of all real-time digital payments globally are made in India.
UPI is operational in seven countries, he added.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: September 19, 2024 | 18:16 IS
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