Social media has a massive impact on not just our physical lives but also our mental ones.
What we see or read, we mostly consider it to be true. This has led to massive information/messages being circulated on such platforms which are often times untrue.
Organizations and government bodies all around the globe, have always requested the public to hear/ read the information only from official sources, before jumping onto the severity of any news they read on such platforms.
In a similar incident, a WhatsApp forward resulted into creating such an unnecessary havoc.
What was this Whatsapp Forward?
A week back, a Kolkata-based housewife Ankita Roy, 54 received a Whatsapp forward from her neighbour, which sent her into a state of panic.
It said that on privatization of a public sector bank, the government guarantee on the respective PSB shall be removed.
This led Roy to worry because most of her bank savings and fixed deposits are split between two major PSBs.
Hers is not the 1st reported case of such unsolicited and mis-informative forwards about after-effects of privatization of banks, being circulated around different platforms of social media.
What can you Expect?
Even though we are hearing everywhere about possible privatization of banks in India, please do not believe everything you read online.
There haven’t been any concrete announcements yet and we always keep you updated on any kind of information regarding the same, as and when it comes officially from the Finance Ministry and the FM Sitharaman.
In May, the FM said that the government intended to undertake a new public sector enterprise (PSE) policy under which there will be at least one state-run company in strategic sectors, while PSEs in non-strategic sectors will be privatized.
This is the reason behind privatization of public sector banks.
Government’s Response on False Messages
The forward received by Roy also consisted of certain pre-emptive speculations which would result post privatization of PSBs.
It said:
- This will create panic in depositors and there will be a bulk withdrawal of deposited money.
- But banks won’t have repayment capacity and they will collapse.
- The entire country’s financial system is collapsing.
Out of panic, Roy forwarded the message to her friends and family, informing them to withdraw money beforehand, if such a thing happens.
To this, Raj Khosla, founder and managing director, MyMoneyMantra replied in a series of answers.
- In a privatization scenario, the government will always retain a portion of the bank’s stake and as such will remain a shareholder.
- Whenever bulk withdrawal of deposits takes place, the government as a shareholder will step in to adequately capitalize the bank.
He gave the example of Yes Bank Ltd and said that even in this scenario, when the government had zero shareholding, SBI stepped in and took control of the situation, protecting the interests of depositors.
It did not let the bank fail.
He also added that if your PSB gets privatized, you will be benefitted with better services and products, especially in rural areas.
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