Mumbai:
The government will not dilute its stake in public sector
banks below 51 per cent, finance minister P Chidambaram
said in the Lok Sabha.
He
said the government's stake in PSU banks would always
be at least 51 per cent and the proposed acquisition of
RBI's holding in SBI would not adversely affect the capital
raising ability of the bank.
Chidambaram
said the Narasimhan Committee had recommended in 1996
that it is inconsistent with the principles of effective
supervision that the regulator is also an owner of a bank
and this would require the central bank to divest its
holding banks and financial institutions.
Following
the committee's report, RBI had announced its intention
to transfer its ownership of shares in the country's largest
bank SBI, housing finance companies regulator NHB and
NABARD. The RBI holds 100 per cent stake in NHB, over
57 per cent in SBI and 72 .50 per cent in NABARD, he said.
SBI,
he said, has a comfortable capital adequacy ratio of 12.63
per cent as of September 30 this year, which is well above
the minimum regulatory requirement of nine per cent.
SBI,
the country's largest bank, has a number of avenues, irrespective
of its ownership to strengthen its capital - raising fresh
equity, issue of innovative perpetual debt instruments
and various other instruments to shore up its Tier II
capital, he said.
|