Rating agency ICRA has said that public sector banks’ (PSBs) profitability and return on assets (RoA) may remain low during the current financial year (FY20) on the back of continued provisioning on existing and fresh bad loans. Provisioning on existing and fresh non-performing assets (NPAs) will consume majority of operating profits. This will result in overall poor profitability and feeble return on equity (RoE) of less than 1%.
The agency said private sector banks will also face another challenging year due to high credit cost and a muted RoE at 9-10%, notwithstanding 15-30% growth in their net profits during the current fiscal. Though, it mentioned that PSBs on an aggregate basis returned to profit for the first time in the first quarter of FY20, after 10 consecutive quarters of losses from third quarter of 2016-17. This was a result of reduction in their net NPA levels by March 2019 upon the sizeable provisioning done in 2018-19. As per ICRA's estimates, the losses before taxes for PSBs stood at Rs 1.15 lakh crore during 2018-19 which were somewhat lower than capital infusion of Rs 1.27 lakh crore by the Government of India (GoI) and LIC in IDBI Bank.
On the other hand, strong net interest income growth and decline in credit provisions drove a strong 30% growth in profit after taxes for private banks during the first quarter of the current financial year. Regarding asset quality, The agency said fresh gross slippages for both PSBs (accounting for about 73% of the total slippage) and private banks rose on a sequential basis during the first quarter, driven by increased slippages in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) segment and the seasonal spike witnessed in the agricultural segment.
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