Tuesday, February 9, 2010

SBI, UBI launch special education loan scheme for women and IIM

The government is working to provide education to the girl child in view of this it has come up with a model education loan scheme to promote education of the girl child. Last year some of the banks under the guidance of the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) decided to promote this special scheme.

Working on this plan some of the banks have designed special education loan schemes for women and also for the IIM institutions at lower rates of interest as the risk factor is low and the volume of loan required is large.

Recently two banks Union Bank of India (UBI) and the SBI has launched education loan scheme for IIMs in which women will have to pay 50 basis points less interest rate than their male counterparts.

UBI education loan scheme has been launched exclusively for IIM students under which male students can avail loan at 10.5% interest and female students can avail at 10%.

The total loan amount is Rs 15 lakh and will cover all education expenses, including hostel fees and cost of books.

But for students of ISB Hyderabad, the loan amount will be higher at Rs 20 lakh. The student exchange program will also be covered in this loan and the education loan outstanding amounts to Rs 952 crore.

The education loan portfolio of SBI, the largest lender of the country, is of Rs 8,455 crore, has also introduced education loan program for IIMs. The bank is offering the same 50 basis points lower interest rate for women, similarly to UBI. The bank plans to increase the number of institutions under the SBI scholar loan schemes from 61 to 100 for the next academic year.

A senior SBI official informed, “So far, SBI has extended loans of up to 4.18 lakh students with the average loan size being Rs 3.75 lakh. Our portfolio size has grown by 31 per cent over the past year”. The education loan rate varies between 11 and 12.75 per cent.

Amongst the banks, Bank of India is the major player in education loans with a portfolio size of Rs 1,700 crore. But the bank has not designed any special schemes for IIM or a concessional rate for women students.

Under this concessional scheme if women students repay their loan amount on time, they can avail an interest rate rebate of 1 per cent.

A senior Bank of India official told, “But we do give special loans for out-of-pocket expenses for the IIM students to buy laptops. Our regular education loans extend to the IIMs also.”

No comments: