In a series of changes announced by RBI on the criteria for selecting Bank licensees, one more statement has come out today stating that “RBI may dilute the initial Capital Requirement to accommodate more licenses”.
Coming after addition of a late applicant and pre-poning the license issue date to meet the deadline of declaration of the Loksabha elections and expansion of the original RBI policy to restrict the number of licenses, it is clear that RBI is trying to accommodate political vested interests in the issue of new licenses.
It is unfortunate that the term of a professional RBI Governor with US citizenship is starting under such strange circumstances.
Instead of this round about way of showing preferences of various kind to the new licensees, RBI may very well admit that it has some favourite applicant and to accommodate him, it does not mind granting licenses to all the 27 applicants. Some of these will make money on the stock market now before dropping out of the responsibilities.
God save the Indian Bank customers!
Naavi
