[caption id="attachment_11749" align="alignnone" width="279"]  [/caption] Bankers feel that the RBI's move to put some of the public sector banks under prompt corrective action (PCA) list may usher in a new era of improved and better functioning of PSBs and consequently more safety for depositors. This contradicts what great social media analysts have been mongering to promote fear among depositors. In the last three months, six PSBs - Maharashtra Bank, Central Bank of India, IDBI Bank, UCO Bank, Dena Bank and Indian Overseas Bank -have been put under PCA. The move will restrict the bank from announcing the dividend, opening branches, hiring and giving loans to companies rated below investment grade. This, in turn, is expected to improve the bottom lines of the PSBs concerned. May it be noted that PCA has been in use since December 2002 and the guidelines put out in April this year were only a revised version of the earlier framework. The PCA framework has three risk threshold levels (with 1 being the lowest and 3 the highest); and breach of capital, asset quality, and profitability levels lead to banks being bucketed in one of the three threshold levels. So the RBI's corrective measures at this point of time are intended to strengthen the banking system over the long run and protect depositors' interest. Deposit insurance under the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (DICGC) is an added safety net in the worst of times. But since each depositor is insured up to Rs one lakh (for both principal and interest), it is better for small depositors to place their deposits in different banks.