Bank of Baroda initiates bottoms-up consultative process to reinforce alignment with national agenda

Pune, August 19, 2019: Bank of Baroda, India’s second-largest public sector lender, had initiated a unique consultation where 136 branches located in Pune City Region and Pune District Region (Pune Rural & Solapur) reviewed their performances, deliberated on issues before the banking sector and ideated on future strategy.

The consultations were held over a period of two days from August 18-19. The initiative was driven to seek ways and means available to increase credit to various sectors of the economy, enhance use of technology to bring about innovation and enable big data analytics and make banking citizen-centric as well as more responsive to the needs and aspirations of senior citizens, farmers, small industrialists, entrepreneurs, youth, students and women.

Thematic papers by domain experts on various challenges facing the banking sector were discussed during the meet with a view to suggest reforms in public sector banks (PSBs). The meet also reviewed the Bank’s performance and its alignment with national priorities in the areas such as credit support for economic growth, infrastructure / industry, farm sector and blue economy, Jal Shakti, MSME sector and Mudra loans, education loans, export credit, green economy, Swachh Bharat, financial inclusion and women empowerment, direct benefit transfers, less cash / digital economy, ease of living, alignment with local priorities and corporate social responsibility.

As a result of the initiative, a number of implementable and innovative suggestions have been arrived on how PSBs in general and our bank in particular, may improve their performance. The consultations for generation of ideas was conducted in a bottoms-up process, which will be further discussed at the SLBC / state level and final consultations will be held at the national level, to compare both, intra and inter-bank performances, for a way ahead implementation across PSBs.

The consultative process has resulted in a renewed sense of involvement and purposes down to the branch level and the Bank is geared towards implementing the roadmap for the future, improve its performance and align itself to national priorities so that it may fulfill its mandate of partnering the Indian growth story.