Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, had announced in September the launch of Customer Outreach Initiative by Public Sector Banks (PSBs) to improve credit delivery and support the needs of the economy, with particular focus on MSMEs, NBFCs, corporates, retail and agriculture sector borrowers, without compromising prudential lending. Customer Outreach in October 2019 resulted in total credit disbursement of Rs 2.52 lakh crore (US$ 36.06 billion).
Total Customer Outreach progress in November: The strong outreach effort of PSBs has continued in November as well, with disbursement of Rs 2.39 lakh crore (US$ 34.20 billion) to MSMEs, NBFCs, corporates, retail and agriculture sector borrowers. This has raised the total disbursement by PSBs to these sectors since the launch of the Customer Outreach in October to Rs 4.91 lakh crore (US$ 70.25 billion).
To boost the MSME sector, out of the total, PSBs have disbursed Rs 35,775 crore (US$ 5.12 billion) in November, raising the total Customer Outreach credit disbursed to MSMEs to Rs 72,985 crore (US$ 10.44 billion).
For NBFCs, out of the total, PSBs have disbursed Rs 25,525 crore (US$ 3.65 billion) in November, increasing sharply from Rs 19,628 crore (US$ 2.81 billion) in October, raising the total Customer Outreach credit disbursed to NBFCs to Rs 45,153 crore (US$ 6.46 billion). Total support sanctioned by PSBs in the form of credit to (including co-origination and on-lending) and pool buyouts from NBFCs since the IL&FS default in September 2018 till November 2019 has risen to Rs 4.23 lakh crore (US$ 60.52 billion), including pool-buyouts of Rs 1.24 lakh crore (US$ 17.14 billion).