FM hails banks for 'highest-ever' ₹1.41 lakh cr profit in FY24

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during her remarks on the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill 2024 in the Lok Sabha today, said Indian banks have performed exceptionally well in recent years, recording the highest-ever net profit of ₹1.41 lakh crore in 2023-24 and ₹85,520 crore in the first half of 2024-25.

"Today, all the public sector banks have turned profitable. As a sector, the profitability of all scheduled commercial banks is the highest in multiple decades, with the return on assets at 1.3% and return on equity at 13.8%," the FM says in Parliament.

She says since 2014, the Modi government has been "extremely cautious" to make banks "stable".

Talking about PM Jan Dhan Yojana, the Finance Minister says in 2014, when the scheme was launched, many questions were asked about how the zero-balance accounts would be maintained, service charges, etc. "At that point in time, it was termed as a useless exercise," she says, adding that today there is around ₹2.37 lakh crore deposited in the PM Jan Dhan Accounts. "In March 2025, the average balance of the PM Jan Dhan Accounts was ₹1,065. It has now increased to ₹4,397," she says.