Mumbai, Sept. 13: The Reserve Bank of India is likely to announce its decision within the next few weeks on whether ICICI Bank and the State Bank of India can set up intermediate holding companies for their insurance and asset management businesses.

Reserve Bank deputy governor V. Leeladhar said the guidelines on bank holding companies would be announced after it received feedback from banks to a discussion paper it floated on August 27.

“The responses have started coming,” Leeladhar said today while talking to reporters on the sidelines of a three-day global banking conference jointly organised by Ficci and the Indian Banks’ Association.

“The moment the deadline is over we will consolidate all responses and, wherever necessary, we will try and modify what we have spelt out in the paper,” Leeladhar said.

In the discussion paper, the central bank had said that the regulation of such intermediate holding companies could prove to be difficult.

The RBI had warned that intermediate holding companies — where a bank owns a holding company that oversees other businesses — could pose regulatory risks.

It said if an intermediate holding company confined its investments to shares of group companies and refrained from any other financial activities, it would not require registration under section 45-I A of the RBI act and would, therefore, not come within the regulatory purview of the central bank.

As a result, the RBI could face difficulty in obtaining crucial information from the intermediary holding company and also in enforcing prudential rules.

The RBI has proposed an overarching mother holding company structure for the banking industry.

It said the bank and the non-banking subsidiaries within a group would come under the umbrella of a bank holding company or a financial holding company.