India Ratings affirms stable outlook for country’s banking sector

23 Jan 2013 Evaluate

Giving a ‘stable’ outlook for the country’s banking sector, India Ratings, however cautioned that lenders may face funding issues which will make passing on of lower interest rates untenable. As per India Ratings, the funding issues will arise from the asset liability mismatches of the banks, which are carrying low tenor deposits and lending for longer duration. Also the banks require $45 billion by FY’18 to comply with the Basel-III regulations.

India Ratings Senior Director Ananda Bhoumik said that banks may face a 'conundrum', wherein they will not be in a position to lower interest rates even if the RBI eases its policy rates. Further he said that a cut in deposit rates will soften the high lending rates, but coupled with inflation staying elevated, will result in a further reduction in real interest rates and hurt the deposit rates.

Regarding the policy perspective, he stated that the effect of any monetary easing during 2013-14 may be diluted due to the twin impact of higher refinancing pressures on banks and slower deposit accruals in a low real interest rate regime.

Further, Bhoumik added that in Indian banking system the refinancing risk is raising especially for the state run banks and the ratio of total deposits and borrowings maturing in a year are standing at an all time high of 20% of the total assets for the public sector banks.

On banking outlook, as per Bhoumik, the continued support being rendered by the government is a positive for the banks and underlined the need to allow them to issue infrastructure bonds, as is being mooted at present. Additionally, some banks are also tweaking their deposit profiles, which is good for them and a likely stabilisation on asset quality concerns by mid-2013 will also work positive for Indian banking sector.  

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