Sitharaman's sops for NBFCs may perk up lending, ease liquidity stress

To further ease the liquidity stress in the non-banking sector and nudge them to revive their lending activities, Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday announced a slew of measures for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and housing finance companies (HFCs). The government hopes this will result in more credit support for purchase of houses, vehicles, and consumption goods. 

The government has provided additional support of Rs 20,000 crore to the stressed housing finance companies from National Housing Bank (NHB). With this, the additional liquidity support for the HFCs from NHB has gone up to Rs 30,000 crore. 

In the Union Budget last month, the FM had encouraged public sector banks (PSBs) to buy high-quality pooled assets of NBFCs up to Rs 1 trillion for which the government would provide a one-time six-month partial credit guarantee for the first loss of up to 10 per cent. 

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had also chipped in by tweaking banks’ bond-holding norms. This will allow banks to borrow an additional Rs 1.34 trillion exclusively for buying such pooled assets and giving loans to NBFCs. The FM on Friday said this partial credit guarantee scheme will be monitored at the highest level in each bank. Through this, it is expected that many of the assets will get quickly pooled and NBFCs will receive the necessary liquidity. “NHB has already settled some of the issues. NBFCs are receiving money from the banks and are moving towards funding,” said Sitharaman. 

Sanjaya Gupta, managing director, PNB Housing Finance, said “This will support growth and ease the liquidity crunch. HFCs will now get an additional Rs 20,000 crore from NHB. The initiatives have potential to kick start the real estate sector.”

The government has also permitted NBFCs to use Aadhaar-authenticated bank KYC to avoid repeating the same process when a customer approaches it for credit. This has been a long-standing demand. The necessary changes in the Aadhaar regulations and Prevention of Money Laundering Act rules will be made, the FM said. 

“This will streamline the process and also reduce frauds,” said Raman Aggarwal, chairman, Finance Industry Development Council. 

The government has also asked PSBs and NBFCs to fast-track their collaboration to provide credit to micro, small and medium enterprises, small traders, self-help groups, and micro finance industry client borrowers.