With the Finance Minister all set to present the Union Budget 2020 in less than 10 days, the big focus this time around will be on how the government stimulates the rural economy.
The street is wondering if there will be anything in terms of food subsidy, reforms on urea subsidy in order to boost rural markets. One beneficiaries of this kind of stimulus could be Bandhan Bank.
Speaking about their expectations from the budget, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, MD and CEO said that the government has met industrialists and bankers to understand the ground reality. “I expect that a good budget will come, which will help country’s economy and if there is economic growth then it will be impacted in a good way, unemployment will reduce,” he said.
Talking about the bank's asset quality, Ghosh said, “I have not seen an increase in stressed assets. Our net non-performing assets (NPA) has come to 0.6 percent from 0.81 percent on back of Gruh Finance merger. The merger happened in mid-October and now the bank has taken the Gruh portfolio fully into their books.”
“When Gruh was to merge, at that time Gruh’s total book had nearly Rs 17,000 crore. They had loan from other banks and bonds. We have repaid 50 percent of that loan, and for that we took some money from the market, which impacted the net interest margin (NIM) a bit but in next 1-2 quarters it will be normal,” said Ghosh, adding that they expect net interest margin to remain above 8 percent.
When asked how the civil unrest in Assam was impacting them, he said, “The situation is gradually improving in Assam. As per my previous experience from demonetisation and other things, these kind of things go on for maximum 3 months. There has been some improvement in the last couple of weeks, and in next couple of weeks, it will become totally normal.”
Source: CNBC-TV18
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