India not ready to privatise public sector banks – Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI India has not reached the point where it can consider selling majority stakes in the public sector banks that control seven tenths of assets in the financial system, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday.

“I don’t think that public or political opinion has converged to the point where we can think of privatisation in the banking sector,” Jaitley told the Economist India Summit in New Delhi.

The government is consolidating some of the public sector banks to strengthen them, but does not plan to reduce the state’s share below a threshold of 52 percent, Jaitley said in a podium interview.