The second edition of bankers' retreat (Gyan Sangam -II) that begins on Friday is likely to see a road map for mergers and acquisitions (M&As) among public sector banks (PSBs), according to business news channel CNBC-TV18.

The channel reported that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will be following up on Budget 2016-2017, wherein he had spoken of consolidation among PSBs.

Bankers are also expected to brainstorm on the issue of rising bad loans, or non-performing assets (NPAs), of state-owned banks that have impacted their profits and hindered fresh lending.

Public sector banks have embarked on cleaning-up their balance sheets as a result of the asset quality review (AQR) undertaken by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) whereby banks have been directed to provide fully for bad loans by March 2017. 

For the third quarter ended December 2015, Bank of Baroda, the country's second-largest public sector bank, reported a loss of Rs 3,342 crore, the highest for any commercial bank in India. 

India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) reported a 62 percent fall in its stand-alone net profit to Rs 1,115 crore for the December 2015 quarter, against Rs 2,910 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.

The gross NPAs of PSBs stood at Rs 3.60 lakh crore at the end of the third quarter (December 2015), up  from Rs 2.67 lakh crore as on March 31, 2015.

The conclave will be held at SBI's academy in Gurgaon, Haryana, and will be addressed by Jaitley, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, financial services secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal, apart from senior finance ministry bureaucrats.

Shares of most of the PSBs were trading in the green on the stock exchanges on Friday, with the S&P BSE Bankex up 225 points, or 1.30 percent, at 17,490 at around 2.15 p.m. The Bank Nifty was also trading with gains.

The Sensex was  trading at 24,678, with a gain of 70 points, or 0.29 percent.