India Business Leader Awards 2019: Biggest bankers decode the financial sector

India Business Leader Awards (IBLA) 2019 jury members Zarin Daruwala of Standard Chartered, Rajnish Kumar of State Bank of India and Aditya Puri of HDFC Bank spoke at length about the latest happenings in the financial sector and the non-banking financial company (NBFC) crisis.

Kumar said the first six months usually has negative loan growth, "For example, housing, we are still at the same growth YoY at 18 percent. Our express credit which is a very popular product is still 30 percent plus. Car loan, some slowdown. Corporate and working capital there is a decline. I am not seeing a decline in term loans but I am seeing a sharp decline in the working capital."

Puri said, "We are seeing an increase in our exports and are we seeing an increase in our lending to some smaller working capital business banking. The larger fellows are deleveraging and the economy is picking up."

Daruwala said heavy monsoon and NBFC's liquidity problem had a little bit of impact, "A lot of the measures that are being taken, hopefully, will show a lift and thankfully we have Diwali and festive season around the corner. So, the expectation is that we will see a lift from here.”