"Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Small Industries Development Bank of India will set up a rating agency for SMEs," OBC chairman B D Narang said on the sidelines of a bankers-borrowers meet at PHDCCI.
He said OBC would also contribute in the proposed venture Sidbi Growth Fund, which will start with a corpus of Rs 100 crore and will be subsequently hiked to Rs 500 crore.
The fund is the second such initiative in the national level by Sidbi to provide cheaper funds to small units of various industries including IT companies.
Sidbi recently got a World Bank loan of about US$500m dollars for various initiatives to step up loans to small companies.
The move assumes importance in the wake of growing demand for credit by software and other small companies.
Loan advances by PSU banks to software industries has increased to Rs 401.13 crore in 2003-04 from Rs 162.19 crore in 2002-03.
