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A customer at the Karnataka Banking Ombudsman’s Town Hall meet, on Tuesday, expressed concern over banks setting targets for selling gold to customers.
The main purpose of the Town Hall meeting was to listen to the grievances of the public with regard to instances of deficiencies and problems while dealing with the banks. Sudhir Ghate, one of the participants, said the Union Finance Minister’s Budget speech urges people to refrain from buying additional gold. “I request that banks should not sell gold. And there should not be targets for banks to sell gold,” he said.
Policy level decision
Replying to this, K.C. Chakrabarty, Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India, said that if a bank is selling gold, RBI will not come in its way. Banning a particular activity is a policy level decision.
Stating that the issue is under examination, Chakrabarty said: “Personally I am in favour of your opinion.”
MSME sector
Jayaraj Pai, president of the District Small Industries Association, said that even the industries in MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) sector have to compete in the global market. In such a situation, he said banks must take steps to bring down interest rates. This will help the MSME sector to compete in the global market.
To this, Chakrabarty said that interest rates reflect the state of inflation of the country. When inflation rate comes down it would have a bearing on interest rates, he said.
One of the participants suggested that banks bring down rate of interest for those setting up educational institutions in rural areas. For this, Chakrabarty said that pricing of loan amount is not decided by the RBI. Individual banks take decision on this.
However, he said educationists must keep in mind that they should not charge higher fees from students after setting up such institutions.
The Chairmen and Managing Directors of Corporation Bank, Vijaya Bank and Syndicate Bank, and the Managing Director of Karnataka Bank Ltd attended the ‘Town Hall’ meeting.
Welcoming the meeting, Karnataka Banking Ombudsman Palaniswamy said the Mangalore meet is the first ‘town hall’ meet of the ombudsman in Karnataka.
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