By Admin 
RBI Banking Report: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday asked financial institutions giving small amount loans to keep an eye on the pressure on their loan books. In the ‘Trends and Progress in Banking’ report for the financial year 2024-25, RBI said that loan distribution in the southern states remained low in the current financial year.
This report comes amid several steps affecting the industry in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
What does the report say?
Accordingly, the industry has taken several steps to improve performance. Also, if pressure increases in this sector in future, regulated entities will need to keep a constant eye on it.
Lenders have faced challenges in the microfinance segment in the last few quarters. Due to which the borrowers were burdened with excessive debt. As a result, the industry came together to adopt some safeguards, including limiting the number of loans given to a single borrower.
Number of ATMs reduced
There was a slight decline in the number of ATMs used for withdrawal of money during the financial year 2024-25, while an increase in bank branches has been recorded. This information has been given in the RBI report.
According to the report, a total of 2,51,057 ATMs were active across the country till March 2025. Whereas a year ago this figure was 2,53,417. There has been a comparatively greater decline in the ATM network of private sector banks.
ATMs of private banks reduced
ATMs of private banks decreased from 79,884 a year ago to 77,117. At the same time, ATMs of public sector banks decreased from 1,34,694 to 1,33,544. The report says that the main reasons behind the decline in the number of ATMs were the increasing steps towards digitization and closure of ATMs by both types of banks.
However, during the same period, the number of independently operated white label ATMs increased to 36,216. ATMs of public sector banks are equally distributed in rural, town, urban and metropolitan areas, whereas the focus of private and foreign banks is mainly on urban and metropolitan areas.
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