Increasing participation of commercial banks in the gold monetisation scheme and the gold metal loan

Abstract

The scheme, first announced by the Government in 2015 aims to mobilise the thousands of tonnes of gold stored/stashed away in homes of Indians, and thereby to reduce the gold imports by decreasing the domestic demand, while putting the gold to more productive use. The scheme allows the consumers of gold who otherwise stash away their gold as a financial savings product to gain interest on their gold (~2-2.5%) However, the adoption of the scheme has been abysmal. Few than 6 tonnes of gold have been mobilised, that too mostly from temples. There are two predominant reasons for the failure of the scheme: consumers are unwilling to part with their gold, and banks have been slow/non-existent adopters of the scheme. This project aims to find reasons behind the slow adoption of the scheme by commercial banks and the regulatory changes/government steps that can be taken to incentivise banks to actively promote the scheme.