COVID-19 effect: RBI allows banks to defer EMIs on home, auto loans for 3 months

In a big relief to the common man, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed banks to defer EMIs on the term loans, including housing, personal and auto loans for three months.

"All banks, lending institutions may allow a three-month moratorium on all the instalment on long-term loans," RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das.

Accordingly, the repayment schedule and all subsequent due dates, as also the tenor for such loans, maybe shifted across the board by three months, he added.

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However, the banking insiders told DH that the benefit is unlikely to be passed on to the accounts that were delinquent as on March 1, 2020.

While the RBI announced the move, the sources in the know say that the move was agreed upon in the meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the industrialists' couple of days back.

While most of the banking insiders that DH spoke to appreciated RBI's measures, they were also critical of the stress it is going to put banks through.

Banking sources, which include a couple of CXOs, told DH that RBI should have announced some NPA-protection measures along with waiving of EMIs for three months to provide relief to banks.