Will take a call on base rate cut post RBI meet: SBI

The State Bank of India will take a call on rates after the Reserve Bank of India meet on Tuesday, says managing director VG Kannan. "If there is a room to cut rates, we will cut," he told CNBC-TV18. He says the market has priced in a 25 basis points rate cut.

According to him, the bond market has already priced in a cut.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) too revised the guidelines for the Joint Lenders' Forum last weekl, making it compulsory for the Empowered Group to have representatives from the two systemically important banks State Bank of India  and ICICI Bank.

These are incremental changes that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made to ensure that banks get together and try and save assets from becoming NPLs. This is a continued effort and initially about a year ago the RBI had asked that as soon as a borrower does not pay for the second month in a row, that is for 60 days, the banks should convene a JLF.Kannan says: "The fact that these two people (banks) have been asked to be permanently there also speaks of the quality of these two institutions related to others."Below is the transcript of VG Kannan's interview with Latha Venkatesh and Sonia Shenoy on CNBC-TV18.Sonia: Bankers had earlier complained that the board of banks finds it difficult to approve decisions taken by the Joint Lenders' Forum (JLF) as the JLF does not have senior representatives of the banks. However, now that it has become mandatory for representatives of State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank to be on this board how much of a positive do you think it could be?A: Whether they want SBI or ICICI I don't know what is the intention but most of the JLF are there with both of them on board. So, from that point of view I don't think there will be much of a difference. However, the fact that these two people have been asked to be permanently there also speaks of the quality of these two institutions related to others. So, maybe there will be some sort of a direction whether we can get some resolution at the earliest.