THANJAVUR:Real money in the banking system of banked economies like India is better than phoney-money in market economies such as America, said well-known economic and political commentator S Gurumurthy here on Saturday.
Delivering a special address at the Thought Leaders’ Conclave organised by the Sastra University on the ‘Role of Public Sector Banks in the Indian Growth Story’, Gurumurthy warned policy-makers on the velocity of real money versus the phoney-money. “If the estimated real money that would be printed globally by 2020 is USD 9 trillion, the market’s phoney-money that will be generated is USD 90 trillion and bank decisions based on such phoney-money will be disastrous and that BASEL norms are irrelevant to India.”
He further said the existing Non-Performing Assets (NPA) of almost 20 per cent is not insurmountable and that China had a 40 per cent NPA once and managed it successfully through effective leadership.
On the role of public sector banks (PSB) in the Jan Dhan Yojana and during the process of demonetisation, he was critical of the PSB employees in their enforced illiteracy on core banking policy issues and their excessive focus on peripheral issues. The conclave was attended by over 300 delegates from the banking and financial services industry, academics and students from different institutions.