SBI to wait for policy cues before hiking rates : OP Bhatt

Country's largest lender, State Bank of India today said it would wait for further signals from the Reserve Bank's annual monetary policy slated next month, before hiking its lending rates.

"There is no plan to hike our lending rates immediately. We will wait till the April policy (of the RBI) to take a call (on hiking lending rates). We will factor in those measures in our decision taking process," SBI's chairman, O P Bhatt, told reporters here today.

Yesterday, the apex bank lifted its repo and reverse repo rates (short term lending and borrowing rates) by 0.25% each to 5% and 3.75% to cool off the high inflation, which has shot past the RBI's forecast of 8.5% by March.

Noting that the central bank's action was clearly targeted to check the spiralling inflation, Bhatt said the RBI may tighten its monetary policy further next month. 

"Further monetary tightening is expected in the April policy," Bhatt said. He observed that there is sufficient liquidity in the system, presently.

Responding to the RBI's policy measures, many of the leading bankers had opined that they would wait and assess the market conditions before reviewing their interest-rate structure.

SBI, which expects to achieve a credit growth of 18% in FY10, has  targeted a growth of 20% in the next financial year on the back of improving demand, Bhatt said.

Bhatt was speaking after inaugurating SBI's 1000th branch and 10,000th ATM in the current fiscal. With this, SBI now has 12,448 branches and over 21,000 ATMs. 

The bank plans to open more than 1,000 branches in the next fiscal.

On SBI's plan to acquire a majority stake in Tata Motor's vehicle financing arm, Tata Motors Finance, Bhatt said the lender is currently awaiting the RBI's nod acquire up to 30% stake in TMFL.

"We have written to the Reserve Bank. We are waiting a response," Bhatt told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

SBI is eyeing around 30% stake in the vehicle financing arm of Tata Motors as acquiring a stake beyond that level would require approval from the government.

"(To acquire) beyond 30% we have to go the government for clearance. So we will take somewhere between 20% and 30%. That means we need the approval only from the Reserve Bank of India," Bhatt said.

On part financing the Bharti-Zain deal, Bhatt said the bank has not committed any loans to Bharti, although it has been discussing the issue with the telecom major. 

"We have not committed anything (loan to Bharti)," he said.

Last month, he had said that the acquisition of Tata Finance would enable SBI to strengthen its presence in thecommercial vehicle segment and particularly to gain synergies in bus and trucks business.