The loans are generally for duration of five to seven years with housing loans granted for a longer duration of 15 years. Credit card is another rapidly growing sub-segment of this product group. In recent past retail lending has turned out to be a key profit driver for banks with retail portfolio constituting 21.5 per cent of total outstanding advances as on March 2004.
We now have the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) report on Corporate Governance, the report of the Trevor Manuel Committee, and the inputs from civil society. We expect that these inputs would be thoroughly analyzed and discussed in the Executive Board and appropriate recommendations for action would be made so that the IMFC could become a more effective forum and the Fund is also strengthened.