Moneycontrol BureauState Bank of India could retain between 15 and 40 percent of the massive deposits it received since the government removed popular bank notes from circulation in November, Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said in an interview to Bloomberg.
Bhattacharya was, however, unable to give a precise estimate of how much of the deposits would be retained owing to the lack of clarity about the proportion of money that had come from businesses and individuals.
"Much of it [money from business] will get taken out because people will want to use it in their business again,” Bhattacharya said in the interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "But if much of this money is from savings of people, which was sitting in their cupboards or wherever, then obviously it won't go out. Once it's in the bank, it'll stay in the bank and therefore that's why we have a very wide kind of range."
The SBI Chairman’s comments come amid uncertainty among investors over whether or not the increased bank deposits since demonetisation will benefit banks.
On January 2, Bhattacharya had announced a rate cut and said SBI was witnessing “unprecedented liquidity”, as low-cost deposits had increased by Rs 1.4 lakh crore after the notes ban. She said the company’s loan book had contracted since November and the advances in the current financial year were expected to expand to 9 percent, compared with about 6.7 percent as of December 31.
Last week, Bhattacharya said that only “history would tell” if demonetisation was the right decision, adding she didn’t believe India could be a cashless society.
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