SBI in talks with MNC banks for acquisition financing, says Setty

Coming to liabilities, do you think a rate cut will make deposit mobilisation further challenging?

- 

C S Setty, SBI Chairman

More than rate cuts, we need to look at liquidity, which the RBI tries to provide. The RBI has been proactive and it did some open market operations (OMOs). The expectation is that it will do such operations, which will infuse liquidity into the system.

SBI’s credit-deposit ratio was close to 69 per cent in Q2. Has it touched 70 percent?

I think it is above 70 per cent now. But there is no concern on liquidity or capital. Even if we have an outside chance of ₹12 trillion credit growth, we can still comfortably support that.

Do you see any further reduction in deposit rates?

On fixed deposits, it would be difficult to cut rates. We must realise that despite the 100 basis-point repo rate cut, the rates for fixed deposits have not been cut as much. Many of us are trying to increase Casa (current accounts, savings accounts). We have not reached the 45-46 level we did at the time of the pandemic.

We should be looking at 38-39 per cent.

Will these steps ensure the net interest margin will improve further?