SBI Chairman, Shri Challa Sreenivasulu Setty, shares his insights with CNBC-TV18

Thank you, Ritu, for having me on your show. I think even beyond profit, as you mentioned, we broadly have taken care of every parameter. I would like to rephrase saying that we check the boxes which are relevant — both in terms of asset quality, in terms of margin maintenance, and also in terms of business growth. The business growth is not restricted to one particular segment. We had holistic growth across business segments — whether it is RAM, corporate — all of them have contributed to the growth, which has resulted in the NII going up by 9%. One important thing I would like to mention is that we also focused on moderating the cost of resources. We focused on retail deposit growth. If you see the 14.5% retail deposit growth rate and our CASA continued to be robust, current account growth rate of 10%. This has ensured that our cost of deposits are contained and this has contributed to the NIM. As far as the net profit is concerned, it has been a combination of contribution coming from the increased operating income and also moderating the operating expenses. As far as the special dividend is concerned, even if you do not consider the special dividend we received from the AMC, we still have very good comparable growth both sequentially as well as year on year. The special dividend is part of the capital optimization efforts that AMC has done, and we got our share of 2,200 crores.

As I mentioned, the credit growth has come across the sectors. Every business segment has contributed. In fact, the corporate segment also rebounded to almost 13% corporate credit growth, and across the RAM segment, every segment has contributed double-digit growth. In terms of the guidance, yes, we are upping the guidance from 12 to 14 to 13 to 15% for the current financial year on an aggregate basis. I don't want to go beyond the current quarter. I think we need to look at the many positives — in terms of the trade deals, in terms of the budget announcements, in terms of the monetary policy related announcements. Everywhere I see a greater opportunity for State Bank of India. We are present both domestically very strong and cross-border opportunities are significant for us. The bank is well positioned to sustain this growth momentum. So the guidance for the current quarter is 13 to 15% as against the 12 to 14% we previously given. We will come back probably in the next quarter in terms of the full year guidance for FY27.

Corporate credit growth — we expect that double-digit growth rate will continue. In fact, my guidance for Q3 was that we will do lower double digit, and I think we have substantially exceeded that guidance. We've almost reached 13.5% as against our expectation of about 10 to 11%. I believe that the corporate credit growth will continue at double digit in the current quarter also. The trade deals will definitely help. Primarily, the US deal has removed the overhang on the tariff side, which is extremely positive in terms of increasing the sentiment for the investment climate. So I believe that the double-digit growth rate on the corporate side will continue, while RAM will still be doing the heavy lifting in terms of the credit growth.