mumbai finance minister nirmala sitharaman urged chiefs of banks and nonbanking finance companies nbfcs on tuesday to join the account aggregator framework to extend the flow of credit to small borrowers and promote digital lendingthe account aggregator platform facilitates open banking by enabling customers of one bank to avail services from any provider entity by making available their transaction history on monday sbi chief dinesh khara had informed the finance minister in an industry interaction that information on cashflows would enable credit to small businesses to grow at the same rate as personal financein her latest meeting with the heads of banks and finance companies sitharaman directed that the pilot for account aggregator model and cashflowbased lending may be replicated in different regions around the country including in the northeastern region on the lines of the initiative by two banks in varanasi districtshe emphasised that digital banking was an opportunity for banks to find new ways to reduce the cost of intermediation and provide costeffective services the meeting was attended by the union minister of state for finance bhagwat kishanrao karad department of financial services secretary sanjay malhotra department of economic affairs secretary ajay seth and chief economic adviser v anantha nageswaran sitharaman also took stock of the progress in lending to the msmes she told banks that they should go out and lend as with a record profit of rs 12 lakh crore in fy21 and rs 79000 crore in h1fy22 they have sufficient capital in her interaction with the media later in the day sitharaman said that the government had stuck to its word on privatisation and had completed the sale of air india and neelachal ispat and was going ahead with the initial public offering ipo of life insurance corporation lic she did not comment on the ongoing investigations into the erstwhile management of the national stock exchange nse during the tenure of former md chitra ramkrishna stating that she had no view until she could get to the bottom of what is available she said that the government would soon appoint a chairman at the insurance regulatory and development authority of india irdai a post that has been vacant for several monthsthe fm refuted allegations that the government was using the ed against political rivals she pointed out that even if the ed wanted to do a political investigation it could not do so as the department deals with predicate offences this means there is already an offence and there could be a pmla prevention of money laundering act angle which they are acting upon she said