State Bank comfortable with Basel II

State Bank of India's (SBI) capital position is comfortable to support its risk-weighted assets under the New Basel Capital Accord (Basel II) and it may not require to raise additional capital on this account, according to the bank's chairman A K Purwar.

The SBI chief said that the bank had an internal committee in place to help it gear up for implementing the New Basel Capital Accord.

The bank had, in 1988, set up a similar committee for implementing the Basel Capital Accord I.

"SBI is a bank with an international outlook. We have branches/ representative offices/ offshore banking units at 49 locations overseas. Hence, we are preparing ourselves for Basel II," he said on the sidelines of a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce of Industry seminar on Indian Banking.

The bank's deposits and advances grew by 14 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively, in the current financial year so far as against the corresponding period last year.

SBI's retail lending portfolio notched up a 40 per cent growth and the growth in corporate advances was "very good" so far.

Purwar pointed out that corporates had become savvy and were raising resources directly from the market. Hence, they no longer depend on banks only to meet their funds requirements.

The SBI chief said that the bank's global balance sheet size, in dollar terms, had grown well on the back of expanded overseas operations.

"Our international presence helps us cover both legs (overseas and domestic) of transactions," he said referring to SBI's balance sheet size.

The economy, according to Purwar, was showing positive signs of growth and the soft interest rate bias of the central bank is expected to continue.

"We are seeing scaling up of capacities in the power and a few other sectors. This should fuel demand for credit in the second half of the financial year," he said.