Taking note of the rapid rise in new Covid-19 infections, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced a three-year special long-term funding facility to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore for small finance banks. This way micro and small businesses can get fresh lending support at a time when the pandemic is putting the Indian economy under stress.
This special long-term repo operations (SLTRO) of Rs 10,000 crore at repo rate (4%) is being introduced for small finance banks, to be deployed for fresh lending of up to Rs 10 lakh per borrower. This facility will be available till 31 October 2021.
“It is positive for small finance banks like Equitas, AU Small Finance Bank and Ujjivan,” ICICIdirect said.
RBI has also allowed small finance banks to lend to the micro finance Institutions (with asset size of up to Rs 500 crore) for on-lending to individual borrowers as priority sector lending.
For the banking sector, the RBI has extended provision to deduct credit disbursed to new MSME borrowers from their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) for calculation of the cash reserve ratio (CRR) till 31 December 2021. This exemption is currently available for exposures up to Rs 25 lakh and for credit disbursed up to the fortnight ending 1 October 2021.
“If we go by ECLGS numbers, we estimate that banks will be able to lend around Rs 30,000 crore fresh loans to MSMEs and estimate that banks will save CRR of Rs 1,000 crore from the fresh loans to the MSME units,” SBI Ecowrap said.
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