NPA recovery: Cases rise sharply, but recovery drops-Business Standard
Only 18% of total debt recovered; Govt should move to make laws tougher at the earliest
Banks have taken the legal recourse to recover Rs 1.74 lakh-crore in FY14, compared with Rs 1.05 lakh-crore in the previous financial year — an increase of 64 per cent
Pointing to a lack of tough laws to deal with bad loans, the latest data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed while loan recovery cases registered with Lok Adalats, debt recovery tribunals and under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interests (Sarfaesi) Act doubled in FY14 vis-a-vis FY13, the percentage of amounts recovered dropped.
According to data, the number of cases referred to agencies increased by a whopping 78 per cent to 1.86 million. However, only 18 per cent of the amount in question was recovered in FY14, compared with 22 per cent in the previous financial year.
Banks have taken the legal recourse to recover Rs 1.74 lakh-crore in FY14, compared with Rs 1.05 lakh-crore in the previous financial year — an increase of 64 per cent.
Pointing to a lack of tough laws to deal with bad loans, the latest data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed while loan recovery cases registered with Lok Adalats, debt recovery tribunals and under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interests (Sarfaesi) Act doubled in FY14 vis-a-vis FY13, the percentage of amounts recovered dropped.
According to data, the number of cases referred to agencies increased by a whopping 78 per cent to 1.86 million. However, only 18 per cent of the amount in question was recovered in FY14, compared with 22 per cent in the previous financial year.
Banks have taken the legal recourse to recover Rs 1.74 lakh-crore in FY14, compared with Rs 1.05 lakh-crore in the previous financial year — an increase of 64 per cent.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan had earlier pointed out the difficulty banks face while recovering through the debt recovery agencies. “The consequences of the delays in obtaining judgments because of repeated protracted appeals imply that when recovery actually takes place, the enterprise has usually been stripped clean of value. The present value of what the bank can hope to recover is a pittance,” Rajan had said in a speech last month.
Debt recovery tribunals (DRTs) were set up under the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks and Financial Institutions Act, 1993, to help banks, financial institutions recover their dues speedily, without being subject to lengthy procedures of usual civil courts. Sarfaesi Act of 2002 went a step further by enabling banks and some financial institutions to enforce their security interest and recover dues even without approaching the DRTs.
Last week, the central bank had released new norms to identify a defaulter as non-cooperative and banks were disincentivised to lend to such borrowers, as fresh loan will attract higher provision. The new laws allow banks to identity not only the promoter of a company but also directors (except those appointed by government or independent directors), as non-cooperative.
The government is planning to make laws more stringent by amending the Sarfaesi Act and DRT laws to effectively deal with the issue of bad loans, especially those created by suspected wilful defaults. It had planned to amend the laws during the recently-concluded winter session of Parliament, but it could not.
Last week, the central bank had released new norms to identify a defaulter as non-cooperative and banks were disincentivised to lend to such borrowers, as fresh loan will attract higher provision. The new laws allow banks to identity not only the promoter of a company but also directors (except those appointed by government or independent directors), as non-cooperative.
The government is planning to make laws more stringent by amending the Sarfaesi Act and DRT laws to effectively deal with the issue of bad loans, especially those created by suspected wilful defaults. It had planned to amend the laws during the recently-concluded winter session of Parliament, but it could not.
It is time that the government should move swiftly to bring about the changes which will bring some relief to the banks that are faced with continuous rise in non-performing assets.
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Publish details relating to write-off of accounts, demand bank officers-Hindu Business Line
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, DEC 31:
Risks to India’s banking system continue to remain at elevated levels on concerns of further deterioration in the asset quality, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report (FSR) released on Monday.
Publish details relating to write-off of accounts, demand bank officers-Hindu Business Line
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, DEC 31:
Banks should refer to review by an independent body one-time settlement/write-off/sale of assets to reconstruction companies involving accounts with balances of ₹10 crore or above.
Accounts where the write-off amount is more than ₹50 lakh must also be referred for review, according to the All-India Bank Officers’ Confederation.
These are suggestions made by the Confederation for consideration by the proposed Gyaan Sangam, a meeting of stakeholders in the banking sector being convened in Pune on January 2 and 3.
BANK-WISE DETAILS
Account details (including value of securities available) where write-offs have been sanctioned should be published on the bank website for the benefit of general public and shareholders.
Bank-wise details of accounts with balance of ₹1 crore and above where write off has been allowed should be published on the RBI website or a separate website created by RBI for the purpose.
The veil of bankers’ secrecy should be lifted in this case by amendment of the relevant law. Once an account is declared NPA, it should not be given the protection under bankers’ secrecy clause.
RISK PERCEPTION
In the eagerness to achieve targets, top bank management appears to give risk perception the go-by while considering corporate credit proposals and high value deposits, the confederation noted.
Banks should give thrust to achieving sustained growth and strengthening of bottomline instead of focusing on topline growth alone.
Banks struggle with bad loans will worsen if economy falters further, warns RBI
Even though the liquidity scenario in the banking system has improved during March-September, risks arising out of deterioration in asset quality and soundness of banks remain, the central bank said.
“Risks to the banking sector have not changed much since the publication of the previous FSR,” the RBI said. The central bank releases FSB once in every six months taking stock of the overall functioning of the financial system through a series of stress tests conducted among banks.
The last such report was released in June, 2014.
The stress tests showed that the overall gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of all scheduled commercial banks will decline to 4 percent by March 2016 from 4.5 percent as of end September 2014 if the economy improves.
But, if the recovery fails to materialize and the current conditions worsen, the GNPA level can worsen to 6.3 percent during the same period, the central bank said, adding that this could erode the capital adequacy of banks.
“Under such a severe stress scenario, the system level CRAR (capital to risk weighted asset ratio) of SCBs (scheduled commercial banks) could decline to 9.8 percent by March 2016 from 12.8 percent in September 2014,” the RBI said in the report.
Under current norms, banks need to set aside money in the form of provisions to cover bad and restructured loans. For a loan that has gone fully bad, the provisions can go up to 100 percent depending upon the state of the asset.
For a fresh restructured loan, the provisioning is 5 percent as against 0.4 percent for a standard loan.
Going by the stressed assets, under a severe stress scenario, among various sectors, the engineering sector is expected to register the highest GNPA ratio at 12.0 percent by March 2016 followed by the cement sector (10.6 percent), the RBI said.
Until September, Indian banks have about Rs 2.7 lakh crore worth of GNPAs, while the total restructured loans under the corporate debt restructuring channel alone stands about Rs 2.6 lakh crore. That apart, banks also conduct bilateral recasts.
As on September, the infrastructure sector contributed the highest to the CDR list with total loan amount of Rs 52,982 crore, followed by iron and steel (Rs 42,655 crore) and power (Rs 31,036 crore).
As Firstpost had noted earlier, delay in economic recovery has already begun to reflect on the balance sheets of banks as companies are unable to recover even after banks offered loan recasts facility.
In the September quarter, number of failed cases, which were taken out of CDR stood at 14 with the total loan amount to the tune of Rs 8,356 crore, while the number of cases exited successfully were nil.
Similarly, in the June quarter, the number of failed cases stood at 9 with loans worth Rs 8,706 crore. Again, the number of successful cases was nil.
In short, despite the loan restructuring facility provided by banks to troubled companies, not a single company has managed to successfully exit from the CDR mechanism in the last six months. On the contrary, the bad loan pile has only grown bigger. This is evidently a bad trend and signals what is in store in the future unless recovery takes place.
“Risks to the banking sector have not changed much since the publication of the previous FSR,” the RBI said. The central bank releases FSB once in every six months taking stock of the overall functioning of the financial system through a series of stress tests conducted among banks.
The last such report was released in June, 2014.
The stress tests showed that the overall gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of all scheduled commercial banks will decline to 4 percent by March 2016 from 4.5 percent as of end September 2014 if the economy improves.
But, if the recovery fails to materialize and the current conditions worsen, the GNPA level can worsen to 6.3 percent during the same period, the central bank said, adding that this could erode the capital adequacy of banks.
“Under such a severe stress scenario, the system level CRAR (capital to risk weighted asset ratio) of SCBs (scheduled commercial banks) could decline to 9.8 percent by March 2016 from 12.8 percent in September 2014,” the RBI said in the report.
Under current norms, banks need to set aside money in the form of provisions to cover bad and restructured loans. For a loan that has gone fully bad, the provisions can go up to 100 percent depending upon the state of the asset.
For a fresh restructured loan, the provisioning is 5 percent as against 0.4 percent for a standard loan.
Going by the stressed assets, under a severe stress scenario, among various sectors, the engineering sector is expected to register the highest GNPA ratio at 12.0 percent by March 2016 followed by the cement sector (10.6 percent), the RBI said.
Until September, Indian banks have about Rs 2.7 lakh crore worth of GNPAs, while the total restructured loans under the corporate debt restructuring channel alone stands about Rs 2.6 lakh crore. That apart, banks also conduct bilateral recasts.
As on September, the infrastructure sector contributed the highest to the CDR list with total loan amount of Rs 52,982 crore, followed by iron and steel (Rs 42,655 crore) and power (Rs 31,036 crore).
As Firstpost had noted earlier, delay in economic recovery has already begun to reflect on the balance sheets of banks as companies are unable to recover even after banks offered loan recasts facility.
In the September quarter, number of failed cases, which were taken out of CDR stood at 14 with the total loan amount to the tune of Rs 8,356 crore, while the number of cases exited successfully were nil.
Similarly, in the June quarter, the number of failed cases stood at 9 with loans worth Rs 8,706 crore. Again, the number of successful cases was nil.
In short, despite the loan restructuring facility provided by banks to troubled companies, not a single company has managed to successfully exit from the CDR mechanism in the last six months. On the contrary, the bad loan pile has only grown bigger. This is evidently a bad trend and signals what is in store in the future unless recovery takes place.
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