Bankers to meet Prez tomorrow
View(s):Heads of commercial banks will be meeting President Gotabaya Rajapaksa tomorrow to assess the progress on credit given to the COVID-19 affected businesses.
This meeting was scheduled after Mr. Rajapaksa criticised the Monetary Board on Tuesday after summoning Central Bank (CB) Governor W.D. Lakshman and senior officials to his office over issues pertaining to delays in credit disbursements.
Commercial banks are also slated to reduce their deposit and lending rates to single digits this week.
This came on the back of the CB, after meeting Mr. Rajapaksa, reducing the cash deposit liabilities or the Statutory Reserve Ratio that commercial banks are required to keep with the CB, in a bid to inject liquidity into the economy.
“Now automatically both deposit and lending rates can be reduced to single digits,’ a banker told the Business Times. On Thursday, the CB sent the circular on issuing new money to banks at 1 per cent to give loans under credit schemes which will take the earlier Rs. 50 billion refinancing facility up to Rs.150 billion. (DEC)