BS Banking Annual 2019: Credit demand is firming up, says SBI chief

There may not be a sharp rise in demand for credit anytime soon, even as some pockets show signs of promise. Can this be sustained?

Rajnikant Ranka, a cement dealer in south-central Mumbai, hopes that with a new state government in place, demand will pick up. “Let us see what they do,” he says, speaking on the day Uddhav Thackeray was sworn in as chief minister. He hopes the new dispensation’s policies will help build on the latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data for the cement sector, which shows an 18.2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in credit growth in October 2019 — among the largest increases for major industries.

Rajnish Kumar, chairman of the State Bank of India (SBI), is candid that “the