Loans to NBFCs in agriculture space could get priority tag

11 May 2011 Evaluate

The government may ask the central bank to accord priority sector tag to bank loans to smaller non-banking finance companies that lend largely to agriculture and small and medium enterprises. The Reserve Bank, in its monetary policy review last week, had struck down NBFCs from banks’ priority list except for those lending to microfinance institutions. Banks are required to lend 40% of their total advances to 'priority' sectors, including agriculture, SMEs and MSMEs and weaker sections.

Non-banking financial companies, which now face a cut in financing after the RBI move, have petitioned the different arms of the government, including the ministry of small and medium enterprises, or MSME. RBI has expressed concern over a 55% increase in credit to NBFCs in the year ended March 2011 as compared to a 20% increase in the overall bank credit.

RBI's concern is that whether this increase is because NBFCs are lending for activities that banks are restricted to. They want to remove such regulatory arbitrage. Any non-deposit taking NBFC which has an asset size of Rs.100 crore is considered as systemically important. This would mean loans to NBFCs such as Reliance Capital and India bulls won't be considered as 'priority' even if RBI relaxes the norms.

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