SBI to maintain status quo on lending, deposit rates: Bhatt

New Delhi, Oct 27 (UNI) State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman O P Bhatt today said the Bank will maintain a status quo on lending and deposit rates for the present, but may review the situation after a month.

Addressing a Press Conference here, Mr Bhatt also ruled out a rate cut in home loans.

Mr Bhatt said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was trying to maintain positive liquidity in the system and expected the interest rates to moderate in future. However, much will depend upon the global liquidity conditions.

Asked that the RBI has taken several steps to infuse liquidity but industry is complaining that it was not getting funds, Mr Bhatt said this may be a perception in some quarters, but it was not correct for SBI or the banking system in general.

He said there was a time during the first week of October, when liquidity had become tight, but after that the RBI became extremely proactive and since then there was no bank now, which was borrowing money from the call market. This means that there is adequate liquidity.

"What may have happened is that at some point of time, when the liquidity was tight some banks may have refused some borrowers or offered to examine their cases after some days.

"I don't think it is true today, which does not mean that banks will not say no. They may now say no for valid credit decisions entailing evaluations", he said.

Mr Bhatt said the SBI is planning for a 26 per cent credit growth for the current fiscal.

The CMD was commenting on a question as to what was the credit growth that SBI was planning, as the RBI was projecting a credit growth of 20 per cent for the currrent fiscal.

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