Liquidity Support of HFCs

To further ease flow of funds to the housing sector, the National Housing Bank (NHB) is making available from 2 August 2019, a liquidity infusion facility of Rs.10,000 crore Housing Finance Companies (HFCs) as additional liquidity for individual housing loans, for affordable housing.

Details of the facility are available on the NHB website, said the Finance Ministry on 2 Aug 2019.

Subsequent to the Union Budget, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had unveiled measuresfor banks to avail additional liquidity of Rs.134,000 crores.

Now, as announced in the Union Budget and as detailed by the Department of Economic Affairs, the backstop guarantee to banks for NBFC portfolios taken over by them has become effective.

Banks will be utilising this guarantee support as per the contours of the scheme.

This facility shall be over and above the two existing refinance schemes of NHB.

The Finance Minister will be meeting heads of all Public Sector Banks and heads of major Private Sector Banks on 5 August 2019, to review matters relating to growth of credit in various important sectors of the economy such as MSMEs, retail, automobiles, affordable housing, NBFCs, HFCs and areas of priority for the banking sector in the coming months for accelerating GDP growth.

The Expert Committee on MSMEs headed by U.K. Sinha has submitted its report in June this year with over a hundred far reaching recommendations for the MSME sector.

These recommendations encompass various domains such as credit, equity funding, technology, marketing, delayed payments, institutional arrangements, need for legislative changes, rural enterprises, SHGs, risk mitigation for MSMEs, setting up of specific funds by Government etc. Taken together, the recommendations seek to enhance competitiveness of our MSMEs and their access to credit.

Many of the actions proposed by the Committee involve inter-ministerial or inter-agency co-ordination.

The Finance Minister will be holding a meeting within the next week with the concerned stakeholders including the Ministry of MSME, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the Departments of Commerce, Industrial Promotion, Telecom, Revenue, Expenditure, SIDBI, NPCI amongst others, to finalise decisions and time lines for action in this regard. fiinews.com