Gross NPAs of banks nearly double to 8.7% in Q1: S S Mundra

Reserve Bank Deputy Governor S S Mundra said level of stressed advances in banking sector has risen to 12 percent as gross non-performing assets nearly doubled to 8.7 percent in June quarter.

System-level stressed advances, which includes GNPAs and restructured standard advances during March 2016, were 11.4 percent, while they were 10.9 percent as of March 2015.

Reeling out the numbers, he said stressed assets of public sector banks have jumped to 15.4 percent in the June quarter as against 14.4 percent in March 2016 and 13.2 in March 2015.

"The level of stressed advances, which include NPAs and restructured assets for the industry, is around 12 percent, but for the public sector banks it is around 15.4 percent as of June 2016," Mundra said at a banking event.

Gross non-performing assets of scheduled commercial banks almost doubled to 8.7 percent in the quarter to June compared to 4.6 percent in March 2015 and 7.8 percent in March 2016, led by public sector banks.

The situation in public sector banks was the worst with their bad loans jumping to 11.3 percent in June 2016 from 9.8 percent in March 2016 and 5.4 percent in March 2015, he said.

Private sector lenders' bad loans were at 2.8 percent in June as against 2.7 percent in March 2016 and 2.2 percent in March 2015.

But the foreign players bettered their asset quality as their gross NPAs improved to 3.7 percent in June 2016 from 4.2 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively in March 2016 and March 2015.

In the financial year to March 2016, banks' profitability dropped a whopping 59 percent to Rs 32,285 crore from Rs 79,465 crore a year ago, hit by higher non performing assets.

State-run banks reported a net loss of Rs 20,006 crore in the financial year ended 2015-16 as against a profit of Rs 30,869 crore.

Private sectors players net profit marginally increased to Rs 39,672 crore in March 2016 from Rs 35,832 crore in March 2015.