State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, on Thursday said it is witnessing a lack of demand for corporate loans, a category where growth is also "muted".
Retail lending, however, is growing at a decent rate, the bank said.
"Corporate lending growth is at 2-3 percent. Clearly, there is a lack of demand for corporate loans.”
"However, retail lending (home loans, personal loans) is seeing reasonable growth at 18 percent," SBI Managing Director Arijit Basu told reporters on the sidelines of ABP Infocom in Kolkata.
He said the SBI Purchasing Managers' Index has crossed the 50 percent mark for the first time last month. "This shows sentiments are slightly improving now."
Asked about the status of non-performing assets, Basu said that gross NPAs declined by 1.5 percent to 7.2 percent as on Sept. 30.
Net NPAs stood at 2.79 percent, he said, adding, the bank has increased the provision coverage ratio to 82 percent from 60 percent.
"Our focus is to strengthen the balance sheet. New slippages will be contained within a certain range of 1.5 percent every quarter. Corporate slippages have also come down," he said.
On bank frauds, he said SBI would make its 58,000-odd ATMs chip-enabled by the end of the current fiscal.
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