MANILA, Philippines - Standard Chartered Bank in India has decided to go slow in disbursing unsecured loans to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), after witnessing a rise of about 40 percent in non-performing assets (NPAs) in the unsecured SME loan portfolio in the last six months.
The bank plans to reduce the share of unsecured loans in the SME portfolio from 30 percent in the last calendar year to about 20 percent by December 2009.