No clamour or rush for loan restructuring: SBI Chairman

New Delhi: Contrary to market expectations, there was not too much demand or clamour for restructuring of loans as permitted by RBI recently to beat the COVID-19 related stress, SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar said.

He expects not more than Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth loans would avail restructuring benefit even though people have projected it to be around Rs 8 lakh crore.

"On the banking side, what I am saying, there is not too many demand. It may be contrary to what the public discourse is. Reasons could be many. One is lot of clean-up has already happened and lot of deleveraging done. More than the banks, corporates themselves are reluctant to carry the tag of restructuring. That is the feeling I am getting," he said.

In such a scenario, he said, the need for restructuring would be more from the lower end of large corporates and upper end of MSMEs.

The segment above Rs 25 crore and less than Rs 400 crore would be coming for restructuring, he said, adding not many have shown interest as on date.

"The problem with me is that I am always more optimistic. That is where I have to be more careful because people will say this man does not know his job. We are saying Rs 8 lakh crore restructuring he is saying not more than Rs 1.5 lakh crore restructuring. So there is a wide variance. What we have found is that there is no clamour or rush for restructuring," he said.

The RBI last month permitted one-time restructuring of both corporate and retail loans without getting

classified as a non-performing asset (NPA).