Unabated increase in COVID cases may impact NBFCs' fund raising via securitisation: ICRA

09 Apr 2021 Evaluate

ICRA Ratings in its latest report has said that an unabated increase in the COVID cases is likely to bring about fears of harsher lockdowns, which could impact the asset quality of retail loans especially for unsecured loans such as in the microfinance sector. It said this, in turn, would impact the fund-raising ability of the NBFCs and HFCs through securitisation of their assets. It noted that securitisation is the process of pooling and repackaging homogenous illiquid financial assets into marketable securities that can be sold to investors.

According to the report, securitisation volume, which stood at Rs 85,000-90,000 crore during the financial year 2020-21, is expected to rise by 40-50 percent year-on-year in the current fiscal (2021-22). NBFCs and HFCs securitised volume stood at Rs 40,000 crore of their loans assets in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020-21, similar to the corresponding quarter of FY2019-20. Despite the healthy activity seen in the securitisation market in Q4 FY2021, the rising COVID-19 cases may again create uncertainty among the investors.

The report stated that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant nationwide lockdown, securitisation volumes had seen an unprecedented fall in H1 FY2021 after two successive years (i.e. FY2019 and FY2020) of healthy volumes close to Rs 2 lakh crore each. It also said that the economic activities gradually resumed and loan disbursements gained momentum, even reaching pre-COVID levels for some NBFCs, the securitisation market saw a healthy uptick in volumes during H2 FY2021. It added that successful implementation of the vaccination programme and the ability of government agencies to arrest the rising infections would remain critical in the near term.

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