PMC Bank: Sitharaman hints at bringing in amendments to curb frauds

Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said that the Centre was open to bringing in necessary amendments to protect the banking system from malpractices. "If amendments are going to help us curb malpractices, help us in better regulating them, help us in better empowering the regulator itself—the RBI—we would like to do it... if necessary, in the forthcoming Winter Session of the Parliament itself we will be bringing in any regulation, any amendments, which may be necessitated," Sitharaman said in Mumbai on Thursday.

The finance minister also met the customers of PMC Bank and assured them of protection. Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Sitharaman said that there need to be a better monitoring system for cooperative banks in the country. "I have asked the secretaries of the ministry to study in detail as to what is happening. Representatives of RBI will also be there to understand shortcomings, what happened, and also to therefore, if necessary, look at the ways in which the respective acts will have to be amended. The group which will look into this will have two secretaries of finance ministry. It will also have one deputy governor-level official from RBI at meeting, so that we take necessary legislative steps to prevent such things from happening in future and empower the regulator better," said Sitharaman. 

She added that the finance ministry might have nothing to do with the PMC bank fraud directly because "the RBI is the regulator". "But from my side, I have asked the secretaries of my ministry to work with Rural Development Ministry and Urban Development Ministry to study in detail as to what is happening," FM said in Mumbai.