RBI rejects bankers demand for rejigging project lending norms

27 Jul 2011 Evaluate

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) rejected bankers demand for rejigging project lending norms, as central bank feels that there is enough flexibility in commercial borrowing operations and it finds no need for open ended approach. In the post-policy meeting with RBI, bankers had requested the monetary authority to rework the project leading norms as current norms is leading to asset mismatches in the system because of the long term nature of such loans.

The asset quality of banks is under pressure, bankers have urged RBI to rework the Non Performing Asset (NPA) identification and NPA classification definition for project leading. Currently, all projects are linked to whether the commercial production stage has been achieved or not, whether the account of project is standard or substandard, bankers believe that this should be delinked and need to look at the final collectibility of all debt.

Due to lack of corporate debt market, firms are forced to depend on banks for funding of projects and banks are not well capitalized to continue to finance such long term projects. RBI’s Deputy Governor Anand Sinha said that there is enough flexibility in commercial lending operations. We have given initially some margins to banks and that margin can be increased on a case to case basis. But such higher margins cannot be given on an open-ended approach. Also there is no need for reworking the existing norms'.

He further said there are two reasons for this. If a project does not start on the due date, or within a reasonable time, then the viability of the project become suspect and that needs to be looked at. By adding further he said another problem with the long term projects in the country is that they are financed on floating rate basis and not on fixed rate basis. This also is a source of risk. Therefore, we have to be careful and we have enough leeway on those projects.

Project financing refers to financing structures wherein the lender has recourse only or primarily to the assets of the project and depends on the cash flows of the project for repayment. It can be “limited recourse” financing when besides the project cash flows’ the lender has some recourse to the balance sheet of the promoter by way of issuance of corporate guarantees. ‘Non-recourse finance’ is used when there is no recourse to the balance sheet of the promoter and therefore the lender takes a higher financing risk and therefore may charge higher interests and/or put stricter norms in place.

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