Financial system remains stable; NPAs may fall to 9% by March 2020: RBI

28 Jun 2019 Evaluate

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its bi-annual Financial Stability Report (FSR) has stated that the financial system remains stable despite some dislocation of late. It said the proportion of commercial lenders' non-performing assets (NPAs) may fall slightly to 9% by March 2020, but recommended that the vigil on non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) continues. RBI governor Shaktikanta has said that as the banks, especially the state-run ones, are on the mend, the structure of non-banking credit intermediation should focus on developing on more prudent lines.

He also pitched for better coordination between the government and the monetary authority to boost growth, and advised state-run banks to get leaner in such a way that they are able to attract private capital and not overly depend on public funds. However, there is something to cheer on the NPAs front, which has dominated the banking sector for the past four years, with a sharp decline in the pile of dud assets.

The FSR said the NPA cycle seems to have turned around with the bulk of the legacy NPAs already recognised in the banks' books. It added that gross NPAs for the system have declined sharply to 9.3% as of March 2019 from 11.2% year ago. Under the baseline scenario, the RBI expects NPAs to improve to 9% by March 2020. The stock of NPAs for state-run banks declined to 12.6% and is likely to come down to 12% by March 2020. The report said there has been a sharp improvement in the provision coverage ratio of all banks to 60.6% as of March 2019 from 52.4% in September 2018 and 48.3% in March 2018.

On NBFCs, the regulator warned against potential stress, and pitched for a tighter regulation of the NBFCs and housing finance companies (HFCs). The central bank said solvency contagion losses to the banking system due to an idiosyncratic HFC/NBFC failure show that the failure of largest of these can cause losses comparable to those caused by big banks, underscoring the need for greater surveillance over large HFCs/NBFCs. The report said mutual funds are the biggest supporters of the financial system courtesy the funds that they provide and hence, any disruption in the MF market has immediate and significant spillovers in the asset markets.

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