Credit growth likely to be 14-15% in FY15: SBI MD

Says green shoots now visible in the economy are likely to keep the need for fresh corporate debt restructuring at moderate levels in the current year

State Bank of India (SBI) expects the credit growth for the full year in 2014-15 to be 14-15 per cent, not very different from the previous year.

The outlook for credit growth remains muted as there has been no traction as far as the credit off-take from the big corporate accounts are concerned, according to B Sriram, managing director and group executive (National Banking).

This falls short of a 16-17 per cent credit growth across all scheduled commercial banks in 2014-15 as was anticipated by SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya early this year.

Speaking to the media here on Tuesday, Sriram, however, said the green shoots now visible in the economy were likely to keep the need for fresh corporate debt restructuring at moderate levels in the current year.  

Responding to a question on the recent initiatives aimed at reining in non-performing assets (NPAs), Sriram said early warning systems were now being built into the loan accounts to act on possible slippages early on.  

However, he refused to give a direct reply on whether SBI too will declare UB Group chairman Vijay Mallya as willful defaulter in the light of a similar move made by the United Bank of India. He said declaration of wilful defaulters was not something that happens once in a while and was an ongoing exercise.

On the loan waiver issue in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the SBI managing director said the bank was expecting some progress on the repayment front from the governments in the next 10 days.

According to him, renewal of loan dues by the farmers was also picking up after guidelines were issued by the two governments pertaining to the loan waiver and this could also help the bank manage the NPAs to some extent in the current quarter.