srinagar finance minister p chidambaram on tuesday said that the poor are more bankable than rich and that it is a grave error for banks to pursue only the wealthy today we have an explosion in banking wherein a banks most trusted customers are not the rich but the poor said chidambaram the finance ministers statement comes at a time when banks are saddled with bigticket bad loans from large corporates speaking at the jammu kashmir banks 75th anniversary celebrations the finance minister said i want the message to go across to all banks the poor of india are bankable the poor of india can be trusted the poor of india are good borrowers the poor of india are honest borrowers and the poor of india are much better borrowers than the rich because of their repayment citing the example of education loans the finance minister said that banks have disbursed over rs 55000 crore of education loans and in most of the cases the finance minister has come across that the borrowers are either children of farmers or smalltime businessmen the finance minister asked banks to adopt a backtobasics approach and focus more on relationships banking is not about complex innovative products they tried that in the west and failed banks should give people what they need and not thrust products they do not want or understand speaking at the occasion jk chief minister omar abdullah said that one area where the state government was constantly talking to the jammu kashmir bank and all other banks was the low level of credit deposit ratio among lenders in the state there is no point waiting for big business to come or for the big infrastructure projects banks need to come up with products that are relevant to the state in areas such as agriculture and tourism finance minister p chidambaram advised jammu kashmir bank to expand its operations outside india the fm also asked the bank to hire young people and have them intern in other large banks to pick up the latest in banking technology the finance minister said that there was a need for the state government promoted bank to go overseas to inspire confidence among investors if an australian or a japanese comes to india and sees their bank here there is a reassurance in doing business here let jk bank open branches elsewhere and you will find the banks trading community following it into the country he said