The Hindu Business Line : More banks hike lending rates

New Delhi April 11 Punjab National Bank (PNB), the country's second largest public sector bank, has increased its benchmark prime-lending rate (PLR) by 75 basis points to 13 per cent. The hike would be effective from April 16. However, no decision has been taken on the home loans front, a PNB official said.

PNB had last increased its PLR in February this year from 11.75 per cent to 12.25 per cent.

With the Reserve Bank of India clearly adopting a dear money policy, the PNB Chairman, Mr S.C. Gupta, had last week indicated that the bank might have to go in for a PLR hike of 25 to 50 basis points in the near future.

Oriental Bank of Commerce has announced that it has decided to raise its Prime Lending Rate by 75 basis points from 12.5 per cent to 13.25 per cent with effect from April 16.

However, the rate of interest on housing loans and education loans remain unchanged.

An OBC release attributed the PLR hike to various factors including the recent hike in cash reserve ratio, increased provisioning requirement on standard advances in certain sectors like real estate, personal loans, NBFC etc and increase in rate of interest on term deposits.

Our Thiruvananthapuram Bureau reports: State Bank of Travancore has hiked its PLR by 50 basis points from 12.50 per cent to 13.00 per cent.

The hike is effective from April 9, a bank spokesman announced here. The bank has also hiked lending rates across the board, he added.

Our Bangalore Bureau reports: Syndicate Bank has raised its PLR to 13 per cent, a 75 basis point increase over the prevailing rate.

A bank release said that the increases would take effect immediately.

The rate increase, the release added, would be applicable to all customers of the bank who have borrowed on floating rates. These include retail customers, the release said.

Our Hyderabad Bureau reports: State Bank of Hyderabad has increased its PLR by 50 basis points from 12.50 per cent to 13.00 per cent with effect from April 12.

However, the increase will not affect educational loans up to Rs 4 lakh and loans to Self Help Groups, according to a bank press release.

The bank has also not increased the interest rates of certain classes of borrowers in productive sectors viz., SME and C&I segments, who are already paying rate of interest above BPLR and with higher credit ratings.

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