The country’s largest bank, State Bank of India, has lowered its credit growth target for the financial year 2025-26 amid tariff-induced uncertainties affecting fresh private investment sentiment. The bank said that its margins would remain under pressure, with the Reserve Bank of India expected to announce a further cut in the repo rate.

As of March 2025, SBI has recorded a credit growth of 11.56 per cent on domestic advances compared with March 2024.

“Our earlier guidance was 14-16 per cent. We are moderating that to 12-13 per cent. At a system level, credit growth would probably be 10-11 per cent,” SBI chairman C.S. Setty said in the post-earnings call of the bank.

The bank has reported a 10 per cent fall in standalone net profit at ₹18,643 crore in Q4FY25 against ₹20,698 crore in Q4FY24 as higher provisions dragged the bottomline. Net interest income of the bank during the quarter was ₹42,775 crore, up 2.69 per cent from ₹41,655 crore in Q4FY24.

Non-interest income grew 39.38 per cent during the quarter, on the back of higher fee based income, cross-selling and commissions. Net interest margin for the bank during the quarter was 3.09 per cent against 3.28 per cent in Q4FY24.

“There could be another 50 basis points rate cut starting with 25 basis points in the next MPC meet. There is definitely going to be some pressure on margins. Some of the portfolio gets repriced immediately with a policy rate cut, while deposits will take some time. The lag is generally 12-18 months for the existing stock to be repriced, while incremental deposits will be immediately repriced,” Setty said.

The bank saw an improvement in asset quality, with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) declining to 1.82 per cent of the total advances in March 2025 from 2.24 per cent in March 2024.

The bank’s board has declared a dividend of ₹15.90 per equity share for FY25. The board has also approved raising equity capital of up to ₹25,000 crore (including share premium) in one or more tranches during FY26.

Kotak net

Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank on Saturday reported a 14 per cent fall in standalone profit at ₹3,552 crore for Q4FY25 compared with ₹4,133 crore in the last quarter of 2023-24.