The government said on Friday no proposal is under consideration to raise the foreign institutional investors' holding in public sector banks from the existing 20 per cent.
Representations have been received from public sector banks to increase foreign investment limit. However, there is
no proposal under consideration to amend the limit, Minister of State for Finance P K Bansal told Lok Sabha in a written reply.
He also said the aggregate foreign investment in private sector banks from all sources, including foreign direct investment, foreign institutional investors and non-resident Indians cannot exceed 74 per cent of a bank's paid-up capital.
On the issue of 'No Frills' accounts, Bansal said that a total of 67,32,335 accounts have been opened under a special scheme of
zero balance accounts as on March 31.
Replying to a question, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said under the differential rate of interest scheme, housing loans up to Rs 20,000 are granted by banks at a 4
per cent rate to provide easy access to housing loans.
The Indian Banks' Association has recently issued a draft model scheme to public sector banks for extending top-up loans to beneficiaries of the India Awas Yojana for completing construction of their houses, he said.
As per RBI guidelines, the interest rates on loans up to Rs 200,000 should not exceed the Benchmark Prime Lending Rate, he added.