Liquidity crunch a major challenge: Banks

KATHMANDU, APR 14 -

With the ending of the third quarter of the current fiscal year, liquidity crunch, the toughest challenge the banking sector is facing currently continues to rule the roost.

With the banks failing to attract deposits, the liquidity crunch continued to affect them. The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) issued a repo worth Rs 34 billion over the last two months, of which, Rs 14 billion is still in the market. “The banks are largely depending on repo and refinancing facility to make lendings this year,” Bhaskarmani Gyawali, spokesperson of NRB.

Banks are relieved to some extent following the central bank’s decision to relax lending in the realty sector and margin lending a month ago. Nepal Bankers’ Association (NBA) President Ashoke Rana and Chief Executive Officer of Himalayan Bank said his bank was witnessing a rise in deposits in saving accounts and added that other banks may have been experiencing the same.

Banks closing the third quarter accounts are in the process of last minute finalisation of financial results. However, bankers say financial results are okay as of the third quarter despite the liquidity crunch. With the relaxation in margin and realty lending, bankers hope that the recovery process would be smooth, helping them to make profits.

Banks, including the Himalayan Bank and Kist Bank, have reported that they made good profit in the third quarter. “Our net profit is likely to grow by 30 percent in the third quarter,” said Rana.

Kist has also reported a growth of above 20 percent in its net profit, up from 8 percent in the first quarter. “We hope to see better growth in the fourth quarter with our cost in branch expansion being saved this year,” said Kist CEO Kamal Gyawali.

Bankers say the profit of banks would depend on whether they could expand the lending and recovery of loans. As of the seven months of the current fiscal year, deposits had grown by just Rs 7 billion while loans grew by Rs 49 billion, according to NRB.

With the rise in development expenditure, the banks usually see growth in deposits in latter months of the fiscal year as well. Bankers have been asking the government to spend the budget at the earliest. Currently, the government has Rs 14 billion in its treasury unspent, according to the Finance Ministry.

Bankers also say that they expect that the relaxation in the real state sector allowing loanees to renew their loans will help the smooth recovery.

“Banks are reporting a very few number of default cases after the NRB adopted a flexible policy on real estate recently,” said Bhaskarmani Gyawali, spokesperson of NRB. The central bank has allowed banks and financial institutions to keep home loans up to Rs 6 million out of the real estate category. “A chance given to reschedule the realty loans if all the outstanding interests are paid has also helped minimise defaults,” said Kist’s Gyawali.

Posted on: 2011-04-14 09:28

http://www.ekantipur.com/2011/04/14/business/liquidity-crunch-a-major-challenge-banks/332481.html