The Union Budget was hailed as growth-oriented by bankers, who said it follows the "familiar strategy" of focusing on driving capital expenditure to help the economy. "The budget focussed on a familiar strategy of driving capital expenditure to drive growth, with the intention of crowding in private investment through higher public spending," the country's largest private sector lender HDFC Bank said in a note.

Micro-lending focused Bandhan Bank's chief executive CS Ghosh said the substantial rise in planned capital expenditure for the creation of infrastructure, focus on affordable housing, welfare and development of small enterprises, and the farm economy will prepare India for the next phase of growth.

State-owned Bank of India's Atanu Kumar Das said pump-priming private investment as laid out in the budget proposals will lead to multiplier effects across all segments of the real sector.

South-based private sector lender Federal Bank's chief executive Shyam Srinivasan said the document, with measures like a 35 per cent increase in capex for infra development, 65 per cent defence capex for local companies, tax incentives for startups and new cargo terminals, will benefit the banking sector.

It can be noted that with the GDP growth on a decline or the economy in contraction mode, credit growth has been impacted deeply and even as the economy revives now, the system is averaging 9 per cent credit growth. Bankers blame a lack of private capex amid low utilisation and slow growth, and the availability of cheaper alternatives of debt for the slow credit growth.

LIC-owned IDBI Bank's chief executive Rakesh Sharma said this is a growth-oriented budget that focuses on the infrastructure sector with measures on roads, railways and logistics sectors and also welcomed the measures to extend the emergency credit line guarantee scheme and expansion of the credit guarantee trust for micro and small enterprises.

State-run Indian Bank's chief executive Shanti Lal Jain lauded the focus on lean energy, infrastructure, agriculture, MSME, education, digital economy, hospitality, transportation and logistics sectors and stressed that the government has tried to address the issue of supply-side bottlenecks in the Budget.

Among the non-bank lenders, L&T Finance Holdings' chief executive Dinanath Dubhashi welcomed that the Budget has made a conscious effort to nurture growth without drastically moving away from the fiscal consolidation path.

Ashish Singhal, managing director of SVC Bank, a cooperative lender, said the proposal to reduce the minimum alternative tax for the cooperative societies is a welcome step.

The move to set up digital banking units in 75 districts as the country observes the 75th anniversary of the independence was also welcomed by Ketan Patel, the chief executive of fintech player MSwipe.

Patel said it should be looked at as a measure of the government's intent to create a digital-first banking approach and not just as a symbolic gesture.

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