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BANK UPDATE

Banks to push for solar panels Lakshmi Vilas Bank rolls
out co-branded credit
The finance ministry has advised banks overseas branches, are expected to card, health insurance
to "encourage" home loan or home borrow from multilateral agencies such products
improvement loan applicants to install as World Bank and provide rupee loans
rooftop solar photovoltaic systems and to borrowers through their branch net- Lakshmi Vilas Bank has launched a
include the equipment cost in the work in the country.
home loan. Given that co-branded credit card in partner-
there are few takers so An internal assessment by ship with SBI Card, and health insur-
far, the issue figured in the the finance ministry has ance products along with Cigna TTK
discussions with public sec- shown that the mode Health Insurance.
tor bank chiefs recently. would help banks lend be-
So, banks may soon chase low the base rate by avoid- Announcing the two tie-ups on the
you to fund installation of solar panels ing hedging costs that add occasion of the bank's 89th anniver-
on your rooftop, and that too at up to 6-8%. Lending below base rate sary, A. J. Vidyasagar, COO, said the
concessional rates. is something that the Reserve Bank of bank is partnering with the compa-
India does not allow currently. nies to offer a wider range of ser-
The move is part of an overall push to vices to its customers. Both partner-
renewable energy and banks have The RBI has already included financing ships also give its access to a new
been "requested" to offer a 1% inter- of renewable energy projects under range of business segments, he said.
est concession for renewable energy the priority sector lending limit, which
projects to propagate the use of green includes loans up to Rs 10 lakh to indi- Vijay Jasuja, CEO of SBI Card, said the
technology. This is in addition to sug- viduals but not much lending has taken co-branded credit card approach ex-
gestions of a new fund-raising and lend- place so far, prompting the govern- tends its reach to a wider segment
ing model, where state-run lenders ment to step in and ask lenders to pre- of the market and enables its part-
such as SBI and PNB, through their pare a special scheme with specific ners to tap new businesses using the
targets. credit card company's expertise and
infrastructure.
SBP celebrates 99th Foundation Day
Jyoti Punja, Chief Distribution Of-
The State Bank of Patiala (SBP) celebrated its 99th foundation day on Novem- ficer, Cigna TTK Health Insurance,
ber 17th 2015 at its head office in Patiala. In the evening a said the comprehensive product
cultural program was organized at its auditorium. The range available with it will be ex-
programme began with lighting of the lamp by bank's Man- tended to LVB's customers through
aging Director, S. A. Ramesh Randgan along with Haridas this tie-up.
K. V., Chief General Manager (CB), and Papia Sengupta, Chief
Cigna TTK is a fast-growing health
General Manager (SAMG). insurance company that has been in
the market for over a year and a half
Bad loans by public sector banks soar 27 pc in a year now. It has built a country-wide net-
work, she said. The bank also an-
Already burdened by bad loans, 37 banks, led by public sector ones, have re- nounced the launch of the LVB Mo-
ported a 26.8 per cent rise in non-performing assets (NPAs) bile, a mobile app.
over the 12-month period ending September 2015.

This is a nearly 10 per cent rise from the 16.9 per cent
growth in bad loans over the same period a year ago, with
several projects, especially those in the infrastructure sector, stuck.

While the overall NPAs now amount to Rs 3,36,685 crore, the rise in the last 12
months ended September 2015 was Rs 71,000 crore, according to figures com-
piled by credit rating CARE.

The banks with a major share in bad loans include Bank of India, Bank of Baroda,
Indian Overseas Bank, SBI and Punjab National Bank.

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