Trends and Challenges in Indian Banking Sector

Abstract

The Indian banking sector has played a critical role in the overall economic growth. Private and foreign banks have started to gain traction in the sector typically dominated by government owned public banks. The sector’s assets have expanded vastly on account of several factors such as financial inclusion, increased competition, Indradhanush program, on-tap bank licensing, focus on mobile banking and technology along with others. While the sector has grown significantly, challenges and roadbloacks such as weak capital position of public banks, rise in non-performing assets, poor talent retention, weak consumer protection norms continue to haunt the sector and the overall economic growth. To counter these challenges, RBI has initiated reforms such as implementation of Basel III, enhanced provisioning for NPA, revised framework for resolution of stressed MSME loans, implementation of strategic debt restructuring (SDR), shift to a risk-based supervision model along with proposing a unified financial services regulator.