The bill allows bank account holders to nominate up to 4 nominees in their accounts; FM Nirmala Sitharaman: Total branches of the Scheduled Commercial Banks have increased by 3,792 in the last year to reach 1,65,501 in September, 2024
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, 3 December, 2024: Lok Sabha today passed the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill 2024. The bill was passed by the voice vote. The bill was piloted by Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs. The bill permits bank account holders to nominate up to 4 nominees in their accounts.
Smt Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, during the debate on the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill 2024, tried to address the concerns expressed by a number of members. FM Sitharaman said in Lok Sabha: “Total branches of the Scheduled Commercial Banks have increased by 3,792 in the last year to reach 1,65,501 in September, 2024. Out of this, 85,116 branches are those of the Public Sector Banks. The branches are expanding in rural areas, providing facilities within every 5 kilometres. There were 41,855 branches in Rural areas in March 2014, as of September 2024, the number is 55,372. In Semi-Urban areas, the number of branches were 32,504 branches in March 2014, now it is 45,314. In Urban areas, there were only 21,007 branches in March 2014, now the number is 29,276. 68% of all PM MUDRA Yojana loans and 44% of PM SVANidhi loans go to women. These are all collateral-free loans.”
Many Hon'ble members talked about student education loans. Sitharaman clarified: “I want to dispel their doubts. Total Student loans have increased from Rs 71,000 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 1.04 lakh crore (outstanding) in 2023-24. There has also been an increase of Student loans to Rs 1.3 lakh crore as on October 2024, which is an increase of 17.6% over October 2023.”
