
Hanging sword of closure on 300 branches of Punjab National Bank
It refers to country’s second-largest public-sector bank Punjab National Bank considering closure of about 300 loss-making branches out of total about 7000 branches. It is noteworthy that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave liberty to banks for merger, shifting or closure of their branches in urban areas without seeking prior RBI permission. Step was needed long ago when branches of an individual public-sector bank became too close because of merger of small public-sector bank in the bigger one.
It is time long-awaited merger-plan of public-sector banks into some bigger ones may be implemented soon to further bring down overheads in running surplus bank-branches. Reducing number of banks will largely reduce need of clearing-operations where funds could be transferred by bank-transfers...