Mumbai, Nov 6: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday urged public sector banks to ensure branch staff know the local language to deepen customer connect.

She also rued that waning customer connect has led to an extra reliance on credit information companies, who take long to update data that leads to situations of customers being denied loans.

In comments that come after multiple instances of bank officials facing political parties' wrath for not speaking local languages, the minister also pitched for changes in recruitment and human resource policies to ensure that people speaking a local language are recruited and also get appraised better.

"Recruit for making sure that every staff posted at a branch would understand his customer, speak the language locally. At least,

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