Initatives to improve growth of loan portfolio & asset quality
Published: Jul 24, 2017
By TIOLCORP News Service
NEW DELHI, JULY 24, 2017: THE State Minister for Finance, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, in reply to a question in Lok Sabha yesterday stated that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has informed that Public Sector Banks (PSBs) accounted for approximately 69% of total loans and advances by all Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) and moderate growth for loan portfolio of PSBs is main reason behind low credit growth at the system level.
PSBs as a group has witnessed significant impairment in certain key industry sectors (having large exposures for PSBs) such as 'infrastructure', 'steel', 'textiles'. In wake of the higher impairment in such industry sectors, PSBs are trying to re-balance their loan portfolio.
The details on outstanding gross loans & advances as reported by SCBs to RBI are as under :-
Bank Group |
31 Mar-15 |
31 Mar-16 |
31 Mar-17 (Prov.) |
PSBs |
56,15,793 |
58,23,907 |
58,74,849 |
Private Sector Banks |
16,07,329 |
19,72,608 |
22,66,721 |
Foreign Banks |
3,36,638 |
3,76,607 |
3,43,986 |
SCBs |
75,59,760 |
81,73,122 |
84,85,556 |
With the enactment of 'Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC)', 2016 the recovery environment is expected to improve leading to improvement in asset quality of banks. An ordinance to amend section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 was recently promulgated in May, 2017 enabling RBI for directing banks to resolve specific stressed assets by initiating insolvency resolution process.
RBI has given elaborate regulatory guidelines for management of asset quality in banks. A framework of Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) is also used to monitor bank's position so as to take appropriate supervisory action and the same has been revised during April-17. RBI has issued Income Recognition and Asset Classification (IRAC) norms to classify and recognize non-performing loans. RBI has provided the Indian Banking System with numerous tools to tackle stress in their asset portfolio. These tools include Scheme for Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets (S4A), Strategic Debt Restructuring Scheme (SDR), Flexible Structuring for long term project loans to Infrastructure and Core industries (5/25 Scheme), Formation of Joint Lenders' Forum (JLF) for revitalizing stressed assets in the system and Corporate Debt Restructuring (CDR) Scheme etc.