India Eco Summit: No change in interest rates, says Kochhar

The country's largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, today said there would be no revision in interest rates for sometime, even as major players like State Bank of India (SBI) and Punjab National Bank (PNB) have slashed deposit rates.

"There is nothing like taking a call on interest rate on daily basis and dynamic basis, when there is a need to change we change it, but given the current scenario I think interest rate would remain stable for sometime," ICICI Bank CEO and Managing Director Chanda Kochhar told reporters at the India Economic Summit here.

Country's largest lender SBI and PNB, last week, cut deposit rates by 0.25-0.50 percentage points to reduce cost of funds.

 

Speaking about bad assets, Kochhar said addition to non-performing assets (NPAs) was down on quarter-on-quarter basis and provisions were down.

"I think peak should be behind us (NPA level) and going forward we should see an improvement in this regard (reduction in NPA level)," she said.

ICICI Bank's net non-performing assets, as on September 30, 2009, stood at 2.36 per cent compared to 1.91 per cent in the year-ago period.