Criticizing the role of media on the report of Vijay Mallya's loan waiver, State Bank of India's Chair-Managing director, Arundhati Bhattacharya on Friday denied any intent of the loan being waivered for the embattled liquor baron.

"This allegation is a mischievous allegation done by the certain parts of the media to unnecessarily give us a bad name and to smudge our reputation. It is a technically accounting entry that is done in order to clean the balance sheet," Bhattacharya told ANI here.

State Bank of India (SBI) has written to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) seeking further relaxation of the scheme for sustainable structuring of stressed assets (S4A), said two bankers aware of the development.

“Any kind of restructuring plan needs to allow either reduction of interest rates, extension of repayment period or additional funding for troubled borrowers.

Fixed deposit investors, beware. The government's decision to abolish Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes and replace them with new currency notes to crack down on black money may spell bad news for fixed deposit investors.

With crores of cash pouring into banks everyday, some banks have sought to cut deposit rates. Banks need to reduce their deposit rates in order to pass on the benefits of Reserve Bank of India rate cuts, amounting to 175 bps since January 2015, to borrowers. So while borrowers can avail cheaper loans, fixed deposits will turn unattractive.

Facing questions, the Centre on Wednesday insisted in the Rajya Sabha that State Bank of India (SBI) had not waived off Rs 7,000 crore loan, including that of industrialist Vijay Mallya, and asserted that such cases are being pursued.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley referred to the Mallya loan issue as a "terrible legacy" which the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government had inherited from the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government.

Assuring that the panic among masses is on the decline following the more constant flow of cash at banks and ATMs, State Bank of India (SBI) chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya stated that the bank will also start dispensing 50 and 20 Rupee notes in coming days to help the public.

The SBI Chief stated that in all of their branches in the southern states, the workload has dropped to almost 50 per cent, which is a sure sign that people are assured that they will receive the money at their own convenience.

While ATMs will be operational from Friday, it will take another 10 days for the situation to normalise, since there are close to two lakh ATMs and only three to four vendors to reconfigure them, SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said on Thursday.

According to Bhattacharya, some of the ATMs are configured to dispense only R100 notes, and they will need to be re-configured to dispense other denominations as well. “There are many ATMs with only R100 configuration and they have to be reconfigured, it was done in the recent past.”

Banking shares extended gains for the second straight day on the bourses after the Government of India declared on Tuesday that the five hundred and one thousand rupee notes will no longer be legal tender from midnight, 8th November 2016.

The public sector undertaking (PSU) banks, the largest gainer with the Nifty PSU Bank index was up 4.4%, as compared to 1.8% rise in the Nifty Bank and 1.3% gain in the Nifty50 index at 09:41 am.

The nation’s largest lender SBI today said it is gearing up to make available “adequate number” of Rs 100 notes at all its ATMs and branches within the next two days to help reduce the inconvenience to the public after the government last night scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes.

SBI Group which includes all its five subsidiaries has 55,000 ATMs and 7,000 cash deposit machines (CDMs). SBI alone has close to 17,000 branches and serves tens of millions of customers.

In a significant development for the Indian bond market, State Bank of India (SBI) and FTSE Russell, the arm of the London Stock Exchange, will jointly develop a bond index for global investors to benchmark Indian bond market against that of its competitors.

FTSE Russell, index and data provider unit of LSE, is among the top three fixed income index providers globally.

The five associate banks of State Bank of India (SBI) have booked heavy combined loss of Rs 3,096 crore in the financial year’s second quarter ended September, on a sharp rise in provisions for stressed loans.

This is an outcome of aligning the treatment of weak and bad loans on the books of associates with those for the SBI group, ahead of the proposed merger with the parent. Collectively, they had posted net profit of Rs 870 crore in July-September 2015. The highest loss this time was reported by State Bank of Patiala (SBP) at Rs 1,340 crore, followed by State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) at Rs 776 crore.

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