Mumbai: State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank are likely to take a hit in profitability in the fourth quarter because of enhanced provisioning on standard loans in certain sectors.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Jan 31 hiked the provisioning for standard loans given to commercial real estate and capital market players and to consumers, including credit cards, to 2 per cent from 1 per cent.

The higher provisioning requirement is likely to result in SBI and ICICI Bank having to make additional provisioning of around Rs 300 crore based on their respective exposures to the targeted sectors.

Taking into account the Rs 41,870 crore exposure of 13 major banks to commercial real estate and capital market as on March 31, 2006, the aggregate provisioning on account of these two sectors alone would amount to about Rs900 crore.

The banks had a total exposure of Rs29,638 crore to real estate, of Rs42,178 crore of the entire sector at the end of March 31, 2006.

The capital market exposure of the 13 banks was Rs12,231 crore out of the total sector's exposure of Rs19,712 crore at the end of March 31, 2006.

These banks include Punjab National Bank, Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank, HDFC Bank, UTI Bank, Corporation Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, UCO Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of India and Jammu & Kashmir Bank.