Kerala House adopts resolution against merger of SBT with SBI

Kerala House adopts resolution against merger of SBT with SBI: A substantive motion moved by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, asking the Union government and the RBI to desist from merging the State Bank of Travancore (SBT) with the State Bank of India (SBI), ...



POLITICAL DOUBLE-TALK?

This refers to the report “Kerala Assembly opposes merger of SBT with SBI” (The Hindu, July 19). Evidently, the move to oppose merger of State Bank of Travancore with State Bank of India, jointly by the ruling LDF and Congress-led UDF is a politically motivated one aimed at some temporary popularity. For decades, commercial banks in Kerala have been very supportive of all developmental efforts initiated by the state government. Despite a strong deposit base partly augmented by remittances by NRK (non-Resident Keralites) population, banks having presence in Kerala have been trying to maintain Credit-Deposit-Ratio at a decent level.
Only recently, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was advocating merger of State and District level cooperative banks in Kerala to form a Kerala-based commercial bank and claiming that the proposed bank will occupy the space likely to be created by merger of SBT with SBI. Incidentally, SBT’s dominance is only in South Kerala and its merger will make SBI more efficient in catering to the credit needs of the state.
The state government and RBI should persuade smaller and weak private sector banks in Kerala also to merge with bigger banks to improve efficiency and economies of scale.

M G Warrier, Mumbai

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