(File photo)

BENGALURU: SBI will start charging processing fees for home loan borrowers, top-up plans, and loans to corporates and builders. This decision comes on the heels of the bank facing a sharp dip in its interest income after the RBI lowered rates.

SBI, in an internal circular, said, "the full waiver of consolidated processing fee" offered during the festival period for loan proposals sourced up to December 31, 2019 is withdrawn. "Waiver will continue for proposals sourced up to October 15, 2019," SBI said.

"On July 1, 2019, SBI linked its lending rate to the benchmark repo rate. Before this, SBI was offering the lowest rate in the market. After the decision to link, the rates came down sharply," a source said.

On July 1, SBI had launched a software for automatically pegging home loans to the dynamic moving rate. It was rolled back on August 1, 2019. Following internal discussions that other charges should be levied to compensate for the low loan rate, SBI again rolled out its lending software on October 1 (in essence pegging loans to the benchmark rate).

Others such as prepayment charges, Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest registration fee might be increased later. "Processing fee would be at around 0.4%. And would be within the 10,000-30,000 (minimum-maximum) range for individual borrowers. For builders, a flat charge of Rs 5,000 has been reintroduced," sources said.

