Reliance Capital unit stops fresh loans

Anil Ambani, chairman of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group, seen in Mumbai in this August 28, 2008 file photo. Reliance Consumer Finance, a unit of Reliance Capital Ltd, has stopped giving fresh loans due to the tightening local liquidity conditions, a newspaper report said on Saturday quoting a top company official.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Reliance Consumer Finance, a unit of Reliance Capital Ltd, has stopped giving fresh loans due to the tightening local liquidity conditions, a newspaper report said on Saturday quoting a top company official.

Reliance Consumer joins other financial lenders such as Shriram Transport Finance Co Ltd and Indiabulls Financial Services Ltd in clamping down on new loans.

"In light of the prevailing market conditions, we deliberately slowed down the growth till September 2008," Sam Ghosh, chief executive officer of Reliance Capital, was quoted by the Hindustan Times daily as saying.

"In fact, beginning October, we have put on hold further disbursals and will review resumption as the situation in the credit markets improve," he said. "Wherever we had made commitments earlier, we are lending," Ghosh added.

Reliance has cut its personal loans portfolio to 13 percent of the total loan book against 15 percent at the end of June, the report added.

Company officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Reliance Capital is part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group and runs India's largest asset management firm, a stock brokerage and insurance businesses.