
Lower capital requirements for bank loans to NBFCs to ease funding woes
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The Reserve Bank of India’s decision to ease rules on bank loans to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) has been driven by a slowdown in credit flow to these entities, which have been facing a funding crunch amid systemic liquidity deficit and rising asset quality stress in small-ticket and microfinance loans, analysts said. On Tuesday, the central bank reversed the increase in risk weight - or the capital that banks must set aside for every loan to cover for potential loss - on loans to NBFCs, in a move that's expected to make it easier for banks to boost on-lending, which has been constrained by higher capital requirements.
“Lending to NBFCs constitutes 9% of overall banking system credit. Revision in risk weights to the pre-November 2023 levels will free up capital for banks and provide additional headroom for credit growth to them. On the other hand, for NBFCs, banks have been a significant source of funding, which was seeing a secular uptrend till the November 2023," said Ajit Velonie, senior director, Crisil Ratings.
The central bank had in November 2023 hiked risk weights on banks’ exposure to NBFCs by 25 percentage points, over and above the risk weight associated with the given external rating. RBI had then also hiked the weights on certain consumer credit segments such as personal loans and credit cards. On 26 February, it rolled back the hike in risk weights on bank loans to NBFCs and also certain microfinance (MFI) loans.
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