PL Capital Coverage: SBI Shares Slip After Record High; Buy Rating Maintained on Strong Q2 Strength
- 18th November 2025
- 3 min read
Summary
SBI shares eased after hitting a record high of ₹976.70 as investors booked profits, even as management pushed for a credit-guarantee framework for new-age sectors and sought green finance to be included under priority-sector lending, a move RBI is cautious about.Mumbai | November 18
State Bank of India (SBI) came off record levels on Tuesday, slipping into the red after hitting a new all-time high of ₹976.70 on the NSE. The intraday reversal followed profit-taking despite a series of policy-focused comments from senior management on credit innovation, green finance and digital transformation.
Management Flags New-Age Credit Opportunities
At the CII Finance Summit in Mumbai, Ashwini Kumar Tewari, Managing Director, said the bank is in discussions with the government on creating a credit-guarantee framework for emerging, high-risk sectors including electric mobility, advanced solar technologies, green hydrogen, green ammonia, battery systems and large-scale data centres.
Tewari said SBI has also sought the inclusion of green finance under priority-sector lending, though both the RBI and the government are cautious because of potential crowding-out effects on traditional lending categories.
He added that SBI will soon launch a Centre of Excellence (CoE) to support lenders with sharper credit-policy design, risk-assessment models and pricing frameworks. The CoE will collaborate with think-tanks and multilateral institutions, and SBI has already signed 20 MoUs for the initiative.
On the renewable-energy side, Tewari said SBI has helped 3 lakh households install rooftop solar systems and plans to scale the programme to 5 lakh. The bank has financed more than ₹70,000 crore of renewable-energy projects so far; its active RE book exceeds ₹40,000 crore.
Digital Modernisation Accelerates Under Chairman Khara
Under Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara, SBI is accelerating a multi-year digital upgrade of its core systems. Speaking at the Singapore FinTech Festival earlier this month, Tewari outlined a roadmap to hollowise and modularise legacy infrastructure through microservices, enhancing transaction speed, system resilience and scalability across India’s largest banking network.
The programme is central to SBI’s strategy to reduce operational complexity and shift more of its retail and SME lending architecture onto real-time digital rails.
Q2 Earnings Stay Robust; PL Capital Maintains Buy
SBI posted a strong September quarter, with profit, income and asset quality all improving on a year-on-year basis.
Key Financials – Q2 FY26 (₹ crore)
| Metric | Q2 FY26 | Q2 FY25 |
| Standalone Net Profit | 20,160 | 18,331 |
| Total Income | 1,34,979 | 1,29,141 |
| Interest Income | 1,19,654 | 1,13,871 |
| Gross NPA (%) | 1.73% | 2.13% |
| Net NPA (%) | 0.42% | 0.53% |
PL Capital maintains its Buy rating on SBI, citing:
- Steady credit growth across retail and SME segments,
- Further improvement in asset quality and recoveries,
- A strong liability franchise led by industry-best CASA ratios,
- Continued benefits from operating leverage and digital transformation.
We expect FY26 to deliver stable margins, strong recoveries and a further strengthening of SBI’s capital position, positioning the bank as the most compelling PSU banking pick.
Read the full Q2 FY26 for SBI here
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