Loan offtake poor, says SBI

Loan offtake at the country’s largest lender, State Bank of India was “bad”, said Managing Director SK Bhattacharya.

“We have been sanctioning loans like mad, but there has been no pick-up (in disbursals),” Bhattacharya said.

“We are not able to understand why,” he added.

It was only the retail sector, which was witnessing a pick-up in credit growth, he said on the sidelines of a banking conference here. Bhattacharya refused to comment whether the bank was likely to achieve its credit growth target for the year.

“Loan sanctions are happening, but you must also see that repayments are depressing the overall credit scenario. Disbursals cannot be seen in isolation and repayments must also be studied carefully,” he said.

SBI had set a target of 22 per cent credit growth for the financial year 2009-10 (Apr-Mar), as against a projection of 18 per cent for the entire banking industry made by the Reserve Bank of India late in October.