S&P Global Ratings in its latest report has said that the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic may set back the recovery of India's banking sector by years, which could hit credit flows and, ultimately, the economy. It also expects non-performing loans in Indian banks will hit a fresh high, raising credit costs, and putting pressure on ratings.
The US-based rating agency said ‘in our base case, we expect the non-performing loans to shoot up to 1314 percent of total loans in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, compared with an estimated 8.5 percent in the previous fiscal year.’ Moreover, it said the resolution of these bad debt situations will likely unfold slowly, which means banks may also be saddled with a huge stock of bad loans next year. It added that an improvement of only about 100 basis points is expected in non-performing loans in fiscal year 2022 and the effect on finance companies will be more pronounced than on banks.
S&P further stated that some finance companies lend to weaker customers and have high reliance on wholesale funding and these companies were already facing a trust deficit since the 2018 default of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services. It said finance companies also face accentuated liquidity risks due to high proportion of borrowers opting for loan moratorium. It pointed out that after years of deterioration, asset quality in the Indian banking system had improved over the past 18 months, helped by higher write-offs, slower accretion of bad loans, and resolution of some big cases under the new bankruptcy law.
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