Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) welcomes RBI’s announcement of a series of measures to protect small borrowers and MSMEs amid the raging Covid wave in the country. Individuals , small business and MSMEs, those who have not availed loan restructuring facility in past, those who had availed but again need support, would be considered by banks. A Rs 50,000 crore liquidity support line was given to banks at Repo Rate for onward lending to entities including vaccine manufacturers, medical facilities, hospitals and also patients.
ICC feels it is a very timely step and support to small and medium players in healthcare , hamstrung by liquidity.
Small Finance Banks (SFBs) have also got a boost from RBI by way of a 3-year long-term repo facility of Rs 10,000 crore for fresh lending up to Rs 10 lakh per borrower. The RBI has also permitted small finance banks to lend to microfinance institutions (MFIs) with asset size up to Rs 500 crore as part of priority sector lending. A massive liquidity injection came by way of second purchase of government securities worth Rs 35,000 crore under the G-sec Acquisition Programme (G-SAP 1.0) on 20th May. This would ease the G-Sec yields, allow an orderly evolution of the yield curve and give needed liquidity support to Government of India.