India needs at least 4, 5 banks the size of SBI: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

India needs at least four or five banks the size of State Bank of India (SBI), the country's biggest lender, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Sunday.

India needs at least four or five banks of a size matching its biggest lender, the State Bank of India (SBI.NS), to meet the growing needs of its economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Sunday.

The rationale for merging banks even before the pandemic was to scale up to meet the new, changing and growing requirements of the economy, Sitharaman told an annual meeting of the Indian Banks' Association.