PNB to reduce personal loans, home finance
Punjab National Bank (PNB) to tighten personal loans, home financeApnaloan.com Research Bureau
10 Aug 2007
Punjab National Bank (PNB), the country's
second-largest public sector bank, is planning to cut exposure to personal loans
and home finance, to bridge the gap between higher credit off-take and lower
deposits, report agency sources.
"The bank is concerned over the widening gap
between resource mobilisation and credit expansion and will soon take decisions
on curtailing credit exposure by reducing personal loans,\' PNB chief general
manager US Bhargava said. The bank's asset liability committee (ALCO) will meet
later this week to decide on the issue, he
added.
PNB's credit exposure is growing at 28% as against
a growth of 20-22% in resource mobilisation. The bank had earlier indicated an
increase in prime lending rate (PLR) by 25 to 50 basis points and higher
apnaloan.com/personal-loan-india/rates.html" id="f38o" style="font-family: Arial;" target="_blank" title="\"click" here="" to="" fget="" the="" personal="" loan="" interest="" rates\="">interest
rates on all types of personal loans and
housing loans.
At present, PNB charges a PLR of 12.25% and the
interest rate on personal loans is between 12-13%. A number of banks such as
ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank have raised PLR by 100 basis points, while Bank of
Baroda had increased interest rates by 75 basis
points.
Bhargava said that while loans for the first house
of a borrower will be kept in the priority segment, PNB will take steps to
discourage buying a second or third house.
The steps taken by PNB followed the recent RBI
measure to increase the repo rate (repurchase rate) and the CRR (Cash reserve
Ratio). The repo rate is the interest rate at which RBI lends to banks, while
CRR is the proportion of cash banks must keep with the RBI. The increase in CRR
and repo rate increases the cost of funds for banks, prompting them to hike
lending rates. RBI resorted to these measures to curb high inflation in the
economy.
(Courtesy:
Myiris.com)