MUMBAI, Jan 5: Only 213 non-banking finance companies (NBFC) - out of 535 NBFCs rated so far - will be able to access the fixed deposit market following the new guidelines announced by the Reserve Bank of India last week.Over 300 of the NBFCs that have ratings of A- and below, will not be able to tap the FD market until their credit ratings reach A. Meanwhile, even those companies that have credit ratings of A and above, will have to regularise their positions by December 31, 1998.Only 15 NBFCs have received triple-A (AAA) rating out of which only eight finance companies are in the deposit taking business. These include Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services, Reliance Capital, Apple Finance, First Leasing, 20th Century Finance, Sundaram Finance, Bajaj Auto Finance and Lakshmi General Finance.While companies with triple-A ratings can raise threee times their net owned funds (NOF) through public deposits, double-A rated companies can raise only two times their NOF. Single-A rated companies can raise public deposits equal to their NOF.Most finance companies have raised FDs far in excess of this limit based on the previous guidelines applicable to NBFCs. The new guidelines will result in an outflow of over Rs 3,000 crore from the non-banking finance industry by the end of December.
