ALL INDIA BANK EMPLOYEES' ASSOCIATION

Central Office: “PRABHAT NIVAS” Regn. No.2037

Singapore Plaza, 164, Linghi Chetty Street, Chennai-600001
Phone: 2535 1522 Fax: 2535 8853 Web: www.aibea.in
e mail ~ chv.aibea@gmail.com

PRESS RELEASE 24-11-2020

By C.H. VENKATACHALAM,
GEN SECRETARY, ALL INDIA BANK EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION
 AIBEA OPPOSES RBI’S PROPOSALS TO GIVE BANKING LICENSE TO
CORPORATE HOUSES
 BORROWER SHOULD NOT BECOME THE LENDER.
 RBI TRYING TO REVERSE THE CLOCK BACK
The recommendations made by the RBI Internal Working Group has
suggested the following, among other recommendations:
- Large corporate/industrial houses may be allowed as promoters of
banks.
- Promoters’ stake in the Bank’s equity share capital can be increased
from 15 to 26%.
- Large Non-Banking Finance Companies owned by the Corporate Houses
can be converted as full-fledged Banks
- Payment Banks can be converted as Small Finance Banks
All these suggestions and recommendations are most retrograde and
unwarranted in Indian conditions. Our Banks represent Rs. 135 lac crore of
people’s money. RBI is supposed to be the repository of the people’s faith in
the banking system but unfortunately, RBI itself is suggesting measures that
will endanger the safety of people’s money in the Banks.
1. Can anyone forget the past when so many private banks owned and
controlled by the Corporates and Big Business Houses of our country
mismanaged the Banks and innocent people lost their precious savings ?
2. Can anyone forget the scams of the past where Bank owners became
the borrowers too and looted public money ?
3. Can anyone forget the past when the Banks controlled by the
Corporates were catering only to the rich and affluent and common
people had no access to banking services?
4. Can anyone easily forget the past when so many private Banks failed
and ordinary people lost their money kept in the Banks?
5. Can anyone forget the past where the Government wanted the private
banks of those years to help the country’s economic development but
those ‘patriotic bank owners’ refused to contribute for broad-based
economic development ?
 6. Can anyone deny the fact it is the big corporate and business houses
who are the major defaulters of bank loans ? Is it prudent to allow
these corporate houses to own and control Banks?
7. Can anyone agree that the lender (bank) and borrower (corporate
house) can be owned by the same people ? Will it not lead to conflict
of interest and affect good governance ?
8. Can anyone dispute the commendable role played by nationalised
Banks all these five decades ? Safety for people money, reaching the
banking public all over the country including in rural areas and giving
loans to priority sector – Are not these benefits attributable only to
nationalised Banks ?
9. Have private Banks contributed for employment generation, direct and
indirect, in the massive way, the nationalised Banks have done ?
10.In such employment in nationalised Banks, there is reservation policy.
If Banks are handed over the private corporate houses, will this
Reservation Policy not get affected?
AIBEA is the organisation that demanded, campaigned, fought and achieved
nationalisation of Banks in 1969. AIBEA is the organisation which has been
fighting against all attempts to weaken the public sector Banks. Now also, if
the Government and the RBI try to allow corporate houses to take over
Banks, AIBEA will unleash countrywide agitation and organize repeated
strikes.
We strongly denounce the provocative recommendations of the RBI Working
Group and urge upon the Government to reject these proposals.
Government should further strengthen public sector Banks in national
interest.

C.H. VENKATACHALAM
GENERAL SECRETARY

People’s money for people’s welfare

Not for private corporate loot