The country?s second largest lender, ICICI Bank, has projected an exposure of of Rs 25,000 crore in agriculture during the current fiscal almost same in 2008-09.
Talking to FE on the sidelines of an investment summit in Mumbai on Friday, Vijay Chandok, senior general manager, ICICI Bank, said that his bank has set up three focus areas for the current fiscal in the agriculture segment including farm sector, micro finance institutions (MFI) and corporates working on agriculture space.
?While we will be focusing on issuance of Kisan cards for the disbursement of loans in the farm sector, the credits would be provided through self help group under MFI segment,” said Chandok.
The bank’s agriculture loan book was above than 18% of its total loan as required by under the priority sector lending norms, said Chandok. He added that the agriculture sector has not seen any kind of slowdown, rather it has witnessed a growth of 14-15%. ?We have not stopped credit to any segment of the agriculture sector. Even we are providing credits against the purchase of agriculture implements too,” said Chandok.
Talking about new strategies of the bank , Chandok said ?We are waiting to hear from the government how was it going to invest a sum of Rs 1,00,000 crore in the sector by 2015, before finalising our action plan.
The bank’s other industries segment of the bank (which primarily includes agriculture and allied activities) registered NPAs to the tune of Rs 1578 crore during the fiscal 2008-09, compared to the mark of Rs 1293crore a year ago, thus registering a growth of 16.1% in the sector over previous year.
Prior to it, inaugurating the seminar, which was held by ICICI Bank’s rural, micro banking & agri business group in partnership with VCCircle, ICICI Bank’s managing director & CEO Chanda Kochhar, said that there are great opportunities in Indian agribusinesses and financial inclusion.
Meanwhile, Rajesh Srivastava, chairman & managing director of Rabo Equity Advisors (a subsidiary of Rabo Bank), said out of the total $120 million which the company wants to invest in Indian agribusiness, it has already brought in $95 million.
Recently the company has already given in-principle approval for having a stake of nearly 26% with an investment of $25 million in an agriculture-infrastructure project. However he refused to name the project..
Meanwhile Rabo Bank International’s Indian NBFC arm, Rabo India Finance, is mulling options to apply for a bank license in India and may take a call in the next 6-8 months, a top official said.
?We are discussing various options (whether to continue as an NBFC or to apply for a bank licence). We will take a call on that in the next 6-8 months,? Rabo India Finance managing director Kaushik Modak told reporters here.