New Delhi, June 6 (KNN) Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said that Public Sector Banks are free to deal commercially with the bad loans.

He was addressing a press conference after meeting with CEOs of the Public Sector Banks.

“Banks should be empowered and constitutionally protected to conduct commercially prudent settlements,” Jaitley said.

“I had a meeting with PSB heads and we discussed various suggestions to empower banks,” FM Jaitley said. “The key discussion topics were credit flow, NPA position and banks expansion,” he said.

The government is fully committed to supporting banks and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code will become operational very soon, said Jaitley adding that government firmly believes that the NPA situation has arisen on account of certain sectoral debts.

The meet is being held against the backdrop of PSBs reporting second consecutive quarter of rising losses. Punjab National Bank is touching Rs 55,000 crore of non-performing assets (NPAs) and private banks like Axis Bank is also anticipating a threat. (KNN Bureau)