Govt to infuse Rs 90,000 crore to help PSBs meet Basel III norms: RBI governor

04 Sep 2012 Evaluate

In order to meet additional capital requirements under Basel III norms, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D. Subbarao said the government will have to infuse Rs 90,000 crore in state-run banks in the next five years, if the Centre fails to scale down their holding in these entities to 51%.

Underscoring that both public and private banks together need an additional capital of Rs 5 trillion (Rs 5 lakh crore) by 31 March 2018 to comply with the Basel III regulations, the governor stated, 'the government, in order to maintain majority shareholding under the Basel III, will have to infuse Rs 90,000 crore into the state-run banks, which in light of precarious fiscal position would be a tall task. Out of Rs 5 trillion additional capital requirements, banks would require Rs 1.75 trillion as total equity capital, and the remaining Rs 3.25 trillion as non-equity capital of Rs 3.25 trillion.

In the FICCI-IBA organized summit, the governor told bankers, that the government only has two options, i.e., either of maintaining its shareholding at the current level or bringing down its shareholding at 51 per cent in all the banks across the board.  

Scaling down of government shareholding across all public sector banks would reduce its burden to just Rs 70,000 crore. However, Subbarao added, “even if the government sacrifices its majority shareholding, it will continue to enjoy the privileges of a majority shareholder”. Furthermore, he highlighted that though the implementation of Basel III norms will hit the profitability of the banks in the near term, the higher regulatory standards will secure growth in the medium to longer term.

Basel-III guidelines, which aim to make banks more resilient against any unexpected economic crisis, envisages scheduled commercial banks (excluding LABs and RRBs) operating in India to maintain a minimum total capital (MTC) of 9 per cent of total risk weighted assets (RWAs) as against a MTC of 8 per cent of RWAs as prescribed in Basel III rules text of the BCBS (Basel Committee on Banking Supervision), which is also higher than the international norm of 8%.

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