New Delhi: Major banks including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank (PNB) and Central Bank today (Sep 9, 2004) ruled out any hike in home loan and lending rates in the short term.

The bankers cited excess liquidity to the tune of Rs 40,000 crore in the financial system as one of the reason for not hiking lending rate.

SBI chairman A K Purwar said that the bank had raised only fixed home loan rate recently and there was no plan to revive either the fixed rate or floating rate in near future.

"The fixed rate was hiked because there was a tendency among borrowers to convert the fixed rate home loan to floating rate," he said adding there will be no further rate hike in the short term. Purwar also ruled out hike in prime lending rate (PLR) in the near future.

ICICI CEO K V Kamath said, "There is no chance of hiking home loan rate. Our costs of fund are low and so there is no reason to hike the rate."

Kamath also ruled out hike in the PLR despite expecting surge in demand for credit in the coming months.

PNB chairman S S Kohli said there was no plan to hike rate - home loan and PLR.

Central Bank Chairman Dalbir Singh said there was no immediate plan to revise the rates as there was excess liquidity of Rs 30,000-40,000 crore in the system. M S Kapur, chairman of Vijaya Bank which is the trend setter among banks in offering lower home loan rate, said his bank was not thinking of hiking rate now. Canara Bank chairman R V Shastri, Indian Overseas Bank chief S P Gupta and Corporation Bank CMD K Cherian Varghese also ruled out hiking home loan and PLR rate.