SBI revamps MSME credit delivery biz

Mayur.Shetty@timesgroup.com
Mumbai: State Bank of India (SBI) has revamped its credit delivery model for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). As part of the exercise, the bank is creating a separate SME regional business unit within every administrative office (AO), which will be treated as a separate branch with a new branch code.
Although the bank had made plans to increase focus on this sector much before the Covid-19 lockdown, it has now decided to go ahead with the restructuring exercise in step with the government decision to boost the flow of credit to MSMEs.SBI’s SME loan book stood at Rs 2.78 lakh crore as of December 2019, which is 14% of the bank’s advances. TNN Non-performing loans in this segment stood at Rs 26,054 crore, which is around 9.37% of the total. This is, however, better than the non-performing assets in corporate loans, which was over 12%.
In a communication to all circles, the port of call for SME business will be a new position of assistant general manager (SME credit) who will have powers of a regional head. SBI has AOs throughout the country, with each one controlling branches covering a few districts. There will also be new positions like chief manager for SME business development, and another chief manager position for monitoring of loans.
Meanwhile, all public sector banks have started releasing emergency credit to small enterprises in keeping with the government directive.