Bank of Baroda, Allahabad Bankand Bank of India saw better recoveries from sticky loans after the government allowed them to publish names of wilful defaulters and auction their collateralised assets. Bank of Baroda's slippages fell to Rs 1,600 crore in the three months to September 30, compared with Rs 1,800 crore in the year-ago quarter. Chairman and managing director SS Mundra said he expects that the worst may be over so far as asset quality is concerned, and that performance would stabilise over the next few years. Bank of India's asset quality improved with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) ratio dipping to 2.93% compared with 3.42% in the September quarter of the previous year. Net NPA improved to 1.85% from 2.04% a year ago. The bank also showed lower slippages and better recoveries sequentially.
The fight against wilful defaulters got a shot in the arm with Reserve Bank governor Raghuram Rajan pushing banks to get bad loans off their books by selling them to asset reconstruction companies.
Allahabad Bank's chairperson Shubhalakshmi Panse attributed the bank's 18% rise in profit mainly to improved recovery performance. The bank recovered Rs 2,573 crore during the second quarter, seven times more than what it had managed a year ago. The bank was also able to contain fresh slippages to Rs 1,200 crore, compared with Rs 1,720 crore last year. It sold written-off assets worth Rs 732 crore to asset reconstruction companies at 50% discount to push up recovery and non-interest income.
Other lenders, including Bank of Maharashtra and Union Ban of India, continued to see spikes in bad loans, but Union Bank chief Debabrata Sarkar said he expects the NPA situation to improve over the next few quarters.
Syndicate Bank and Indian Overseas Bank, however, continued feeling the pains as the economy is still showing some stress.
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