State Bank of India’s mortgage loan book crossed the Rs 9 lakh crore mark in November, with strong traction in retail, agriculture and MSME (RAM) segments expected to drive overall credit growth to 14 per cent in the current financial year, Chairman C S Setty told PTI.The RAM portfolio, which accounts for about 67 per cent of SBI’s total loan book, crossed Rs 25 lakh crore in September. On the back of improving economic activity, the country’s largest lender has raised its credit growth guidance from 12 per cent to 14 per cent for FY26.“We increased guidance on credit growth. We have revised it from 12 per cent to 14 per cent. We see a robust credit growth, particularly from the RAM segment, MSME is almost growing at 17-18 per cent and agriculture and retail is around 14 per cent,” Setty said in an interview with PTI.He said gold loans are seeing healthy expansion, while express credit – the bank’s unsecured personal loans segment — is also expected to post double-digit growth. Corporate credit, which had remained subdued for some time, showed signs of revival with a 7.1 per cent growth in the second quarter.“Our guidance on the corporate credit would be in lower double digit, which means that overall, 12-14 per cent credit growth rate seems to be achievable,” he said.Setty noted that the Reserve Bank of India’s decision to cut the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.25 per cent would make borrowing cheaper and support demand for fresh loans. The rate cut, announced last week after a six-month pause, came as economic growth hit a six-quarter high of 8.2 per cent in the July–September quarter of FY26.Despite the rate cut, the SBI chairman said the bank remains confident of achieving its net interest margin (NIM) guidance of around 3 per cent.On capital needs, Setty said SBI may not require additional equity capital to fund growth over the next five to six years. “Even before this QIP was raised, our ability to fund credit growth has never been a problem. We wanted to strengthen the capital ratios, so we have. Our long-term strategy is to maintain CRAR at 15 per cent and Common Equity Tier 1 at 12 per cent,” he said.Such capital buffers would allow the bank to fund advances of over Rs 12 lakh crore, he added. “With a profit rate like what we have today, if the same profitability is maintained for another 5-6 years, we may not require any capital raising, at least on the CET 1 part,” Setty said.
