Banking sector to continue to see difficult times in 2014: Fitch

17 Dec 2013 Evaluate

Rating agency, Fitch, in its report underscored that Indian banking sector, reeling under asset quality pressures, will continue to see difficult times in 2014 due to the weak macro environment. However, the rating agency has assigned ‘stable’ outlook for Indian banking sector, driven by revision in the sovereign outlook.

Further, the rating agency expects asset quality indicators for the domestic banks to deteriorate, and stressed assets to peak around 15% due to further weakening of the economic environment. Stressed assets of domestic banks were at 9.1% of total loans (which includes non-performing loans of 3.4% and restructured loan ratio of 5.7%) in FY'13 from 6.1% in FY'12.

The rating agency also noted that the stress tolerance of the banks had weakened, resulting in downgrade of viability rating (VR) at several state-owned banks recently. In its report, Fitch highlighted that while the state-owned banks, whose earnings and capital buffers did not kept pace with the significant asset quality deterioration, were likely to face more pressure on their VRs; private sector banks were better positioned to face the economic slowdown.

Nevertheless, it also pointed that full impact of protracted slowdown remained to be seen, adding that it had scaled down India’s economic growth forecast for 2013-14 to 4.8% (from 5.7%) and that a 5.8% growth forecast for 2014-15 could mean a revival, albeit at a slow pace.

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