SBI to cut processing and conversion fees on home loans

With the advent of festival season India’s largest lender – SBI has embarked upon a special campaign to ramp up its home loan book. It is going to reduce the processing fee for home loans to Rs.1,000 per loan irrespective of the size. The offer would be made available from September 1 onwards, a senior bank official told.
With the advent of festival season India's largest lender - the State Bank of India (SBI) has embarked upon a special campaign to ramp up its home loan book. It is going to reduce the processing fee for home loans to Rs.1000 per loan irrespective of the size. The offer would be made available from September 01 onwards, a senior bank official told.
Currently, loan processing is at 0.25% of the loan amount subject to a cap of Rs 6,500 for loans upto Rs.75 lakhs. For any higher loan amount, the maximum fee ceiling is Rs.10,000.  For example, if you apply for a loan of Rs. 20 lakhs, you need to pay a processing charge of Rs.1000/- With the new offer, it will be uniform at Rs.1,000 for a home loan. However, the offer would end on 30th November, 2012.
At the same time, the banking behemoth is actively mulling reduction in conversion fee which is presently at 1%. For all banks, conversion fees are in the range of 0.50-2%. This move, if implemented, will help the existing (SBI) home loan customers, who are not entitled to get the benefit of reduced interest rates to avail of the lowered interest rates. Let’s assume the loan size is Rs.30 lakhs and a customer has already repaid Rs.10 lakhs. Therefore, he has to pay Rs.20,000/-(i.e. 1% of 30-10 lakhs) one-time upfront for the conversion.
Earlier, SBI cut the interest rates on home and auto loans by over 50 basis points, effective from August 07. However, it did not change the base rate (remains at 10% p.a), the benchmark rate below which the Reserve Bank of India does not allow any bank to lend. Now, a home loan borrower can avail of a home loan with interest at 10.25% as against 10.75% prior to the rate cut, for a ticket size of Rs 30 lakhs. The interest rate will be 10.40% for loans above Rs. 30 lakhs. The EMI on Home Loan tenor of 30 years is Rs.897 per lakh which is the lowest in the market.
However, the new rates are available only to the new customers. So, a customer who had taken a loan at a higher floating rate viz. 11.25% will be keen to avail the benefit of the current lower rate. So, he can convert his loan to the new rate by paying the conversion fee. "Those proposed moves by RBI will certainly benefit customers, who should tap opportunities right in time. However, the bank cannot just keep on doing this beyond a point as it may hurt their margins," said Anil Rego, CEO and founder, Rights Horizons, a Bangalore based advisory firm.
With 26% market share, SBI continues to be the leader in home loan market followed by the privately held housing finance company- HDFC.  "We have got some surplus funds after RBI cut statutory liquidity ratio by 1% to 23%. We have decided to utilize it in expanding our retail business. The Bank is aiming at 20-25% growth in its home loan portfolio. As the country's largest bank, we have a vital role to play in supporting the economy", said the official.
As of July, SBI's home loan portfolio stood at around Rs 1.06 lakh plus crores. Total retail loans stood at Rs 1.86 lakh crores in the April-June quarter. To facilitate home loan borrowers, it is planning to upload the list of housing projects, approved by the bank shortly.  The bank has tied up with 1,046 such projects across India till July in 2012-13. In order to enlist its projects, a builder has to meet certain norms prescribed by SBI. For listed projects, the bank sanctions home loans in 4-5 days while it takes around 14 days to approve a home loan for other housing constructions. The lender offers a loan to value (LTV) of 90% for home loans upto Rs 20 lakhs and upto 80% for loans above Rs 20 lakhs.

SBI management mulling working Sundays to improve efficiency

Mumbai: Country's largest lender State Bank of India may have its branches open on Sundays to help improve efficiency, a top bank official has said.
"Possibly we would like to see Sunday working which would increase the time available for doing banking and increase the business," bank chairman Pratip Chaudhuri told analysts on a conference call organised by the brokerage Edelweiss Securities.
The bank had last year taken everybody by surprise by opting to keep all its branches open on October 2 to compensate for a day's business loss due to a technical snag.
The bank management was happy with the foot falls and the staff turnout at the branches at that time in spite of it being a Sunday as well as a national holiday - Gandhi Jayanti.
Notably, many private banks, which control only a minority share in the banking operations, do keep their select branches open on Sundays for customer convenience, even though technologies like internet banking have reduced the need.
Being open on Sundays is said to help the branches attract the new-age working class customers where both the spouses in a household work and struggle to do banking transactions during the week.
SBI, which has almost 14,000 branches across the country, counts on its large chunk of savings account deposits (at over 38 percent) for higher margins.
However, if such a move were to be made, it would be interesting how the bank unions, which had crippled banking operations across country last week protesting reform measures, take to such a proposal.
SBI had carried out widely appreciated 'Parivartan' programme in early part of this decade, which helped it stay relevant in changing times and maintaining lead in the market.
During the call, Chaudhuri said the costs incurred on developing physical infrastructure and network does not hit the bank as much as staff costs.
In order to improve efficiency, it will therefore try to delegate routine responsibilities currently done by officers to the low cost junior employees, he said.

Soon, a bank-wide portal that will allow you to shop for best service

Customer is king Online travel portals seed the idea of a similar portal for banks Customers could compare interest rates on deposits/loans across banks at one go Figuring out which bank offers the best deal could become easy Will empower customer
Mumbai, August 20: How convenient it would be to compare at one place interest rates on deposits offered by various banks, their retail loan rates, margin amounts they require, the processing fees they charge, the add-on facilities they offer on deposits, and so on.
Extremely. The Finance Ministry also thinks so, and wants public sector banks, a la travel portals such as cleartrip, makemytrip, yatra and expedia, to explore the feasibility of setting up a bank-wide portal. These online travel portals allow travellers the convenience of comparing the fares quoted by various airlines so that they can buy the cheapest ticket plus the various add-ons such as hotel rooms and airport pick-up.
Wide choice: As things stand now, customers seeking a higher return on their investible surplus, or the cheapest home, car or personal loan, have to either go to the branches of various banks or surf their individual Web sites. No mean task as there are 26 public sector banks, including the five associate banks of State Bank of India. A more discerning customer may widen his search to the 23 private sector banks too.
Time-Saver: But with a bank-wide portal, customers can avoid the tedium of visiting the branches of various banks or surfing their Web sites, saving much time and energy. At the click of a mouse, one can compare interest rates on deposits and loans across banks, said a senior public sector bank official. “The portal could usher in transparency in banks’ dealings with customers,” he explained.
Banks will have to update their details on the portal regularly to reflect the latest position on interest rates, and any change in product features. The portal could also incorporate a feature whereby, if a customer zeroes in on a particular bank to place a deposit with or take a loan from, all he needs to do is share his contact details, so that officers from the nearest branch can contact him to complete the transaction.
Advertising: A banker said that private sector and foreign banks too may join the portal at a later stage, if it attracts enough eyeballs. The project to design, build, own and operate the portal is likely to be given to an information technology company. The company can recover the costs from advertisements placed by banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and broking firms.

SBI hopes to maintain treasury gains in second quarter

“We are hopeful that income from treasury will be maintained at the present (Q1) level,” Deputy Managing Director and Group Executive (Global Markets) of SBI, P.P. Pradeep Kumar told PTI here.

During the first quarter, the public sector lender has optimally managed its treasury operations to post mark-to-market gain.

SBI has a mark-to-market gain of Rs 521 crore during the last quarter, which was an important factor that helped it post its highest-ever net profit of Rs 3,752 crore.

Furthermore, the bank said that it was able to check losses in the equity portfolio by exiting from all loss-making entities.

Referring to high government borrowing plan coupled with possible hardening bond yield, Pradeep Kumar said any small change in yield is not going to impact the profitability of the treasury operations.

“I don’t think any small change will have major impact on the treasury gain,” he said.

SBI posted a 137 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 3,752 crore in the first quarter ending June on the back of healthy net interest income.

Net profit of the public sector bank stood at Rs 1,583 crore in the same period previous fiscal.

Total income of the bank increased by 16.9 per cent to Rs 32,415 crore in the June quarter compared with Rs 27,732 crore reported in the same period last fiscal.

SBI cuts interest rates on Home & Car loans from August 7

Mumbai, August 1: The country's largest lender State Bank of India will cut rates on its home and auto loans. The move comes close on the heels of the Reserve Bank of India cutting the statutory liquidity ratio for banks in its policy statement on Tuesday.

 

SBI will cut rates on home loans by 25 bps and on auto loans by 50 bps, the bank's chairman Pratip Chaudhuri told ET NOW in an exclusive interview. The new rates will be effective from August 7. The bank, however, is not in a position to cut its base rate at present.

 

"We need to use interest rates as an instrument to increase credit flow. We are targeting home and auto loans because the pass through in both these segments will be the fastest," Mr Chaudhuri said. SBI's asset liability committee met on Wednesday evening to take a call on interest rates following the RBI's policy.

 

According to Mr Chaudhuri, "there is very weak corporate demand and it won't make business sense to cut rates for corporates at this juncture." However, he added that a pick-up in demand from corporates may lead to the bank looking at reducing rates for corporates.

 

SBI has in the recent past cut rates on its SME and auto loan portfolios but this is the first home loan rate cut by the bank in a few quarters.

 

Though the bank hasn't taken any call on deposit rates yet, Mr Chaudhuri mentioned that SBI is seeing a surfeit of deposits at a time when the rest of the banking industry is starved of deposits. The bank will declare its Q1 earnings on August 10.

 

PTI Reports:  New Delhi, August 1: State Bank of India today slashed lending rates on car and home loans by up to 0.5 per cent, a day after one per cent cut in SLR by the Reserve Bank. SBI has reduced interest rate on home loans of up to Rs 30 lakh to 10.25 per cent from existing 10.50 per cent (after 0.25 per cent concession over the card rate), a senior bank official said.

 

On the home loans of beyond Rs 30 lakh but less than Rs 75 lakh, the new rate will be 10.40 per cent against the existing 10.75 per cent, down 0.35 per cent.

 

The new rates will be effective from August 7, the official added. The base rate or minimum lending rate of SBI stands at 10 per cent. Base rate is the benchmark rate below which a bank cannot lend.

 

With regard to the car loan, the reduction is to the extent of 0.5 per cent. The new car loan would be 10.75 per cent against the existing rate of 11.25 per cent for a seven-year loan. Now for every Rs 1 lakh, a customer has to pay Rs 1,699 EMI against Rs 1,725 per month earlier. SBI claimed this as the lowest EMI. With the reduction, a borrower would end up saving Rs 312 per year on every one lakh.

 

Yesterday, RBI in its quarterly monetary policy review reduced Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR), the amount of deposits that have to be invested in government bonds and other liquid assets, by 1 per cent. RBI Governor D Subbarao cut the SLR to 23 per cent, thereby releasing around Rs 68,000 crore of additional liquidity into the system, even as he left all the key interest rates unchanged in the anti-inflationary stance.