A recent press report said that the country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has said that it was not in favour of hiking lending rates despite the Reserve Bank’s 12th consecutive rate increase.
Mr. Pratip Chaudhuri, Chairman, SBI told the press that the margins are quite strong and the net interest income for the September quarter is also pretty good so the bank has not planned to hike the rates. He added saying that a hike in rates will make the bank uncompetitive.
SBI’s base rate, or the minimum rate of lending, stands at a competitive 10 per cent following the increase affected after the July policy hike of 50 bps.
Mr. Chaudhuri also said that the bankers, who met Mr. D. Subbarao, RBI Governor as part of the customary pre-policy meet before the credit policy announcement on October 25, had asked for a pause in hikes due to weak global cues. In a bid to curb the uncomfortably high inflation, which stood at 9.78 per cent in August, RBI has raised its key policy rates a record 12 times over the past 19 months.
Earlier SBI had announced an extension of 25 basis point concessional home loan schemes till December this year. The bank‘s credit basket includes home loan, personal loans, car loans, education loan, mortgage loan etc.