After opening the day on a positive note taking cues from the US Fed rate hike, share markets in India have continued the momentum and are trading above the dotted line. Sectoral indices are trading on a positive note with stocks in the metal sector and stocks in the capital goods sector leading the gains.
The BSE Sensex is trading up by 140 points (up 0.5%), and the NSE Nifty is trading up by 52 points (up 0.6%). Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 1.1%, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 1%. The rupee is trading at 65.36 to the US$.
In news from stocks in the banking sector. India’s largest lender, State Bank of India’s (SBI) board approved a plan to raise up to Rs 150 billion through equity capital in the next fiscal.
SBI plans to raise funds via public offers for sale, employee stock option purchase schemes and overseas issuance of shares.
The board added that the mode of fund raising would be decided at the “opportune time” subject to approval of the government and the Reserve Bank of India.
The bank, in November had announced plans to raise over Rs 56.8 billion by issuance of preferential shares to the government in the curent fiscal, but that has not happened so far.
A fresh infusion of capital will help the bank improve its capital adequacy position which stood at 13.7% at the end of December, higher than the minimum 10.25% requirement under the Basel III norms.
SBI has received Rs 75.7 billion capital infusion in the current fiscal year Rs 18.9 billion of which has come in January. The government had announced a four-part capital infusion plan, to infuse Rs 250 billion each in 2015-16 and 2016-17 and Rs 100 billion each in 2017-18 and 2018-19 in public sector banks in 2015.
At the time of writing, SBI share price was trading down by 0.2%
PSBs dominate the banking industry in India with more than 60% of the total outstanding loans. They chose the easy life of issuing big-ticket loans to large corporations over the hard work of reaching out to many small retail subscribers. Extending credit to small and medium enterprises (SME) was also limited – to the extent of meeting priority sector lending targets set by regulators.
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