ADVERTISEMENT

SBI To Link All Floating Rate Loans To Repo Rate From Oct. 1

SBI has also extended the external benchmark-based lending to medium enterprises.



A customer walks out of a State Bank of India Ltd. (SBI) branch in Mumbai, India, (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)
A customer walks out of a State Bank of India Ltd. (SBI) branch in Mumbai, India, (Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

State Bank of India said it will adopt repo rate as the external benchmark for all floating rate loans for micro, small and medium enterprises, home and retail loans, from Oct. 1, 2019.

On Sept. 4, the Reserve Bank of India had mandated all banks to link all new floating rate personal or retail loans and floating rate loans to MSMEs to an external benchmark from Oct. 1 onwards.

We have decided to adopt repo rate as the external benchmark for all floating rate loans for MSME, housing and retail loans effective Oct. 1, 2019, the bank said in a release.

The RBI gave the banks options to benchmark their floating rate loans either to repo rate, three-month or six-month treasury bills or any benchmark market interest rate published by Financial Benchmarks India Private.

The bank has also extended the external benchmark-based lending to medium enterprises, to boost lending to the MSME sector as a whole.

It had introduced floating rate home loans effective July 1, 2019, but has made some modifications in the scheme effective Oct. 1, 2019, to comply with the latest regulatory guidelines, the release said.

Opinion
Linking Loans To External Benchmarks Credit Negative For Banks, Says Moody’s