SBI says Q1 home, auto loan growth 'fairly reasonable'

Mumbai: The State Bank of India Monday said the nation's largest lender has had a "fairly reasonable" growth in auto and home loans so far this fiscal.

"So far in the last quarter, there has been a fairly reasonable growth in the home loan portfolio and in auto loan portfolio," bank's MD and Group Executive for National Banking A Krishna Kumar told reporters here, but declined to give an exact rate of the growth.

He was speaking at the launch of a disabled-friendly ATM for the visually impaired here, he said the bank will have 5,000 such ATMs by the end of this fiscal, from the current over 3,300.

It can be noted that because of the slowdown in the corporate credit pick up due to the gloomy economy, banks have turned their focus on the retail lending sector, generally considered more resilient.

Kumar said there has been no stress on the retail book of the bank, which has among the highest gross non-performing assets ratios in the industry.

On the deposit rates front--a cut in which will be a precursor for a cut in lending rate--Kumar said that it is too early to review those, even though the deposit growth has been healthy for the bank.

"It is too early to say right now. Let us see how the quarterly figures pan out, and then let us see how the market moves," he said.

On deposit accretion, he said, "Deposit growth is not subdued. Deposit growth is still strong... As far as we are concerned."

Bank Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri had last month told PTI that it has registered a growth of nearly 60 percent in deposits on a year-on-year basis due to a flight to safety by depositors following some popular chit fund schemes going bust.

PTI