Global rating agency, Moody’s Investors Service in its latest report has said that the government’s plan to provide Rs 65,000 crore of new capital to public sector banks (PSBs) in the year ending March 2019, will restore capital adequacy and improve loan-loss coverage at many loss making banks, however stress will persist. It noted that of the Rs 65,000 crore, the government has already allocated Rs 11,300 crore to five lenders in July. It added that this capital infusion comes after the capital support of Rs 90,000 crore in the prior year.
According to the report, a large-scale bank recapitalisation plan, which was meant to improve capital buffers and loan-loss reserves and also support sufficiently strong loan growth, will now be just enough to shore up capital ratios above regulatory requirements because the banks' capital shortfalls have grown larger than the government's initial projection. It noted that the PSBs' external capital needs will not grow much further after fiscal 2019 because the banks' profitability will gradually improve as credit costs moderate in tandem with progress in an ongoing balance-sheet cleanup.
The rating agency further said that the capital injections would only help the lenders achieve Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratios of 8 percent by March 2019, satisfying the 2.5 percent conservation buffer on top of the 5.5 percent minimum under Basel III norms in India. It noted that this would give the banks a capitalisation profile comparable to those of their similarly rated peers globally. It added that this means the government has little choice but to increase capital support if it seeks faster loan growth to support economic expansion.
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