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India’s central bank, Reserve Bank of India has mandated a priority sector-lending target of
40% of total ANBC or CEOBC to help develop the section of society at the bottom of
pyramid and where banks would not normally lend. The bank met the overall target of 40%
and exceeded it by 6%, however, it has been consistently been not able to meet its sub-targets
with the PSL norms. For example, in fiscal 2014, agricultural loans made under the ‘direct’
category were 12.2% of ANBC, against the requirement of 13.5%, with a shortfall of Rs
29.03 billion, and advances to sections termed “weaker” by the RBI were 6.25% against the
requirement of 10.0%, with a shortfall of Rs 83.97 billion.
In the case of non-achievement of priority sector lending targets, including sub-targets, it is
required to invest in deposits of Indian development banks, such as the National Bank of
Agriculture and Rural Development, National Housing Bank and the Small Industries
Development Bank of India. As of March 31, 2014, total investments as directed by the RBI
in such deposits were Rs151.19 billion, yielding returns ranging from 3% to 8.25%. Gross
NPAs in the directed lending sector as a percentage to gross loans were 0.3% as of September
30, 2014 (as compared to 0.4% as of March 31, 2014 and March 31, 2013). Further
expansion of the PSL scheme could result in an increase of NPAs due to its limited ability to
control the portfolio quality under the directed lending requirements.
The profitability of these operations depends on bank’s ability to generate business volumes
from such customers. Future changes by the RBI in the directed lending norms may result in
bank’s further inability to meet the priority sector lending requirements as well as require it to
increase our lending to relatively more risky segments and may result in an increase in non-
performing loans.
Future Challenges for the banks
One of the major challenges that banks face are threat from E-wallets. Previously banks
faced competition only from similar entities (other banks).But now they are facing
competition from online payment systems. In India, more than 500 million people do not
have bank accounts but own mobile phones, getting these people on to mobile wallets helps
achieve our country’s financial inclusion agenda in a big way. People who do not have an
account, or have poor access to banks, can access a mobile wallet for transactions. It is
expected that Rs. 1,500-2,000 crore could be transacted on these platforms this year. The
major companies providing mobile wallet services in India are telecom service providers such
as Vodafone’s m-pesa, Bharti Airtel Ltd’s Airtel Money, Aircel’s Mobile Money and Tata
Teleservices Ltd’s mRupee and payment services companies like Oxigen Services, PayTM
and MobiKwik. Paytm is developing a system under which you could pay by simply
transferring money from your mobile wallet to the retailer’s wallet just like cash. The
universal banking license to new players in CY14 will be the game changer for the banking
sector, as it will allow non‐financial non‐banking companies to establish banks, which will
increase competition in banking over the medium to long-term scenario. Such competition in