SBI hopeful of controlling fresh slippages: MD

Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI), reeling under huge stressed assets like other banks, is hopeful that going forward it would be able to control fresh slippages "Going forward, fresh slippages will be under control.

Specifically from September onwards, things will become better," MD (national banking group) of SBI Rajnish Kumar said. Kumar said that gross NPA was 9.93 per cent of its total lending, which was roughly Rs 1.90 lakh crore. "We are rather concerned with the net NPA which is at three per cent now," he told reporters on the sidelines of a CII meet here today. The ideal net NPA level should be 1.5 per cent, he said.

The bank was also aiming at higher provisioning which would be aided by increased earnings, he said adding that the present provision coverage ratio was 60 per cent. Kumar said that reduction in NPA levels as a percentage of total lending would only happen when the credit base increases.

During the current financial year, the bank's credit growth is pegged at six to seven per cent, he said. SBI would also raise money from green bonds to fund clean projects, he said.

Regarding resolution of stressed assets, he said that there was a need to improve the infrastructure in the first place. Presently, there are only 11 National Company Law Tribunal benches across the country and 25,000 insolvency cases were pending. Since the resolutions would have to do in a time-bound manner, the number of benches would have to be increased, he added.