PNB chief says SBI, ICICI Bank have room for rate cuts...

Without naming the State Bank of India (SBI) and the ICICI Bank, India’s third largest lender Punjab National Bank CMD K C Chakrabarty today said there was “headroom for rate cuts” for the two banks.

“There is always headroom for interest rate cuts. Every month our technical committee meets, we only decide when the asset-liability committee recommends,” he told reporters after inaugurating its second micro-finance branch here.

The banker took a dig at the country’s top two banks in terms of balance sheet size. He said PNB was the strongest bank in the country with lowest prime lending rate (PLR) at 11.50 per cent.

“My PLR is 75 basis points lower than the largest bank in the country and 350 basis points lower than the second largest bank. There is headroom for rate cuts,” Chakrabarty said.

PNB was eyeing to cover 50,000 villages across India with its banking facilities over a span of five years and planned to increase its customer base from four crore to 15 crore in the same time period, Chakrabarty added.