With the revision in the priority sector norms in 2012, the same have been rationalized and larger foreign banks have also been mandated to be at par with Indian banks on priority sector lending, in a phased manner. (ii) Pricing norms for the priority sector business have been freed and banks are permitted to fix interest rates on their own.
This will help banks to carry out FI initiatives in a viable and self sustaining manner, which will facilitate its scaling up. We, however, do expect that the pricing would be non-discriminatory and would not be exploitative. 10  BIS central bankers’ speeches  (iii) There has been a policy shift with emphasis being on greater branch expansion in rural areas.