Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the focus will continue on governance reforms in banking and there is considerable improvement in opening of basic savings bank deposit accounts under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. During his Pre-Budget Consultative Meeting with the representatives of Banks and Financial Institutions in New Delhi yesterday, Mr Jaitley said that Basic Savings Bank Deposit Accounts reached 440 million for the period ended September 2015. <br/><br/>The Finance Minister said the setting-up of Bank Board Bureau will replace the Appointment Board for appointment of Whole time Directors as well as Non-Executive Chairman of Public Sector Banks to formulate appropriate strategies for their growth and development. He said the government has replaced the earlier mechanism of Statement of Intent on Annual Goals for Public Sector Banks with Key Performance Indicators to make the targets generic and not bank specific so that the need to interact with bank is eliminated or minimized.<br/><br/>Finance Ministry said, various suggestions were made by the representatives of Banks and Financial Institutions. The major suggestions included increase in exemption limit to 2.5 lakhs rupees for savings under the Income Tax Act, incentives for encouraging cashless transactions including through Debit/Credit cards, focus on promoting growth and increase in public spending till private sector investment picks-up. <br/><br/>Other suggestions included broad based FDI in agriculture sector, introduction of a New Crop Insurance Scheme backed by technology and fully integrated financial inclusion and biometric authentication initiatives of the Government.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the focus will continue on governance reforms in banking and there is considerable improvement in opening of basic savings bank deposit accounts under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. During his Pre-Budget Consultative Meeting with the representatives of Banks and Financial Institutions in New Delhi yesterday, Mr Jaitley said that Basic Savings Bank Deposit Accounts reached 440 million for the period ended September 2015. The Finance Minister said the setting-up of Bank Board Bureau will replace the Appointment Board for appointment of Whole time Directors as well as Non-Executive Chairman of Public Sector Banks to formulate appropriate strategies for their growth and development. He said the government has replaced the earlier mechanism of Statement of Intent on Annual Goals for Public Sector Banks with Key Performance Indicators to make the targets generic and not bank specific so that the need to interact with bank is eliminated or minimized.<br/>Finance Ministry said, various suggestions were made by the representatives of Banks and Financial Institutions. The major suggestions included increase in exemption limit to 2.5 lakhs rupees for savings under the Income Tax Act, incentives for encouraging cashless transactions including through Debit/Credit cards, focus on promoting growth and increase in public spending till private sector investment picks-up. Other suggestions included broad based FDI in agriculture sector, introduction of a New Crop Insurance Scheme backed by technology and fully integrated financial inclusion and biometric authentication initiatives of the Government.