
The Indian Bank Book Retail and MSME increased by 14% and 12% last year, and its goal is to maintain this dynamics, says Binod Kumar. | Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The Indian Bank based in Chennai is optimistic about achieving the goal of its loan growth of 10-12% for the financial year 2026.
“Overall, at the industry level, loans are slowed down,” Binod Kumar, CEO and CEO of Indian Bank, said in an interview. “The slowdown of credit growth is on two or three numbers. One is a retail – where slowing is mainly due to unsecured lending and credit cards where we do not have much exposure,”
“We remain optimistic about achieving our goal of 10-12% of credit growth for the financial year 2026, supported by improvement of macro environments, expected reduction in policy rates and stronger retail and MSME credit inquiry,” he said.
Our retail and MSME book increased by 14% and 12% last year, and we try to maintain this dynamics, Kumar said.
He said that Indian Bank focuses on loans for housing, lending and financing a supplier chain based on a cluster that brought a business of 1,300 GBP last year.
On the company side we focus on champions such as data centers, chemicals, engineering, electric vehicle, oil and gas and renewable energy. With constant economic momentum and supporting regulations, we expect our growth to connect well with industrial trends, Kumar said.
“On the corporate side we see the demand for brownfields and not much to expand in the green fields. Large companies also satisfy their financial needs from internal acruals and in the case of deadline loans the payout is only 20-30%compared to the penalty.
Mr. Kumar said that the bank will also focus on sectors such as intelligent measurements, distribution of city gas.
He said two reductions in interest rates from the Indian reserve bank (RBI), as well as the expectations of other cuts are likely to stimulate the demand for the loan.
“Many have postponed their projects due to higher interest rates. Reducing rates will also increase their retail demand, especially in segments such as housing loans,” he said.
On the front side of the deposits, Mr. Kumar pointed out that the deposits for the current account and the savings account (CASA) were a problem for all banks, while growing was flat.
“The term deposits up to 3 ₹ Crore increases by 9-10%. The difference between savings and term deposits is more than 4.5%. With the rate of rate that there will be no different benefits,” he said.
“In the last year, we maintained the CASA ratio over 40%. To further strengthen our deposit base, we increase our resources (RACS) centers (RACS) by another 25 races planned in this fiscal. Competitive environment,” Kumar said.
In addition, recent tax measures in the Union budget are expected to promote mobilization of deposits, he added.
The judgment of the Supreme Court, which managed the liquidation of Bhushan’s power and steel (BPSL) and ended the earlier JSW Steel solution, Mr. Kumar said that the bank is under the waiting and tracking regime and will take appropriate steps in coordination with the creditors’ committee to ensure its interest and maximize enforcement. The bank had an exhibition of 2,618.34 Crore in BPSL to 31 December 2020 and won 1,265.87 crore through the resolution plan.
He said that RBI liquidity measures were useful and the impact is visible on the part of the mass deposit, where the rate is reduced by 60-70 basis points.
Published – May 26, 2025 21:23