Dubai exposure of Indian banks pegged at $537 mn

NEW DELHI: As many as seven Indian banks had an exposure of around $537 million in Dubai World and other group companies at the time of the Emirate’s debt crisis in November 2009, minister of state for finance Namo Narain Meena told the Lok Sabha.

The list of banks include both public sector and private sector banks such as SBI, Bank of Baroda and ICICI Bank.

But there is little cause of concern and the recent global financial crisis has proved the soundness and resilience of the Indian banking system, he said.

“Indian public sector banks are adequately capitalised and that they are maintaining higher Capitalto-Risk Weighted Assets Ratio (CRAR) to meet any additional provisioning requirement arising out of any unforeseen higher non-performing assets (NPAs),” he said.

While, country’s largest lender State Bank of India had exposure to the tune of $50 million, Bank of Baroda had an exposure of $200 million. Among the private sector banks, ICICI Bank had an exposure of over $28 million and HDFC Bank of $4.23 million. Other foreign banks present in India with an exposure in Dubai are HSBC ($44 million), Standard Chartered Bank ($120 million) and Citi Bank ($86 million). In November last year, the Dubai government owned Dubai World had asked its creditors for six more months to repay its debts as asset prices were coming down. Dubai World has total debts of $59 billion.