PNB, Crisil inks agreement for risk rating of SMEs

New Delhi, May 18 (UNI) Punjab National Bank (PNB) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Crisil, acting as a catalyst in improving the SME credit portfolio of the bank and providing comfort level to lender and borrowers for hassle free and timely credit.

Under the agreement, Crisil will assign ratings to the PNB borrowers. These ratings will be carried out under the 'NSIC-CRISIL Performance and Credit Rating for Small Scale Industries (SSIs)' scheme and on Crisil's own Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) rating scale.

''To provide better financial transparency and management quality and to re-solve the major bottlenecks in financing SME units, CRISIL will provide proper risk rating,'' Punjab National Bank General Manager V K Nagar said.

Crisil offers a special incentive by providing concession in its standard fee structure to assist potential/existing SSI/SME customers of the PNB to obtain rating.

''Crisil believes that the SSIs and SMEs have a lot to gain from the use of ratings. This MoU marks another milestone in CRISIL's commitment to the sector.'' CRISIL Senior Director (Ratings) Raman Uberoi said in a statement today.

UNI