Public Sector Banks

Bank Lending Down by Half in 2016-2017

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On April 6, 2017, the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) published the latest Monetary Policy Report. Buried on page 40 of the report is a very interesting data point which rather surprisingly hasn’t been splashed on the front pages of the pink papers as yet.

In 2016-2017, Indian banks gave out total non-food credit worth Rs 3,65,500 crore. Banks give working-capital loans to the Food Corporation of India(FCI) to carry out its procurement actions. FCI primarily buys rice and wheat directly from Indian farmers using the loans it takes from banks. When these loans are subtracted from overall loans given out by banks, we arrive at non-food credit.

In 2015-2016, the total non-food credit of banks had amounted to Rs 7,02,400 crore. What this means that non-food credit came crashing down by close to 48 per cent during the course of 2016-2017, the last financial year. To put it simply, this basically means that in 2016-2017, banks lent around half of what they had lent out in 2015-2016.

The important question is why has this happened? A major reason for this is that the total outstanding loans to industry has actually shrunk in 2016-2017(between April 2016 and February 2017, which is the latest data available) by Rs 60,064 crore. This basically means that Indian banks on the whole, did not give a single new rupee to industry as a loan during the course of 2016-2017.

And the reason for that is very straightforward. Over the years many corporates have defaulted on the loans they had taken on from banks, in particular public sector banks. And this explains why banks are not in the mood to lend to corporates anymore. As they say, one bitten twice shy.

In fact, as on December 31, 2016, the gross non-performing assets or bad loans of public sector banks had stood at Rs 6,46,199 crore, having jumped by 137 per cent over a period of two years. Bad loans are essentially loans in which the repayment from a borrower has been due for 90 days or more. The bad loans of private banks as on December 31, 2016, stood at Rs 86,124 crore.

A major chunk of these defaults has come from corporates. As of March 31, 2016, the total corporate bad loans of public sector banks had stood at Rs 3,36,124 crore or 11.95 per cent of the total loans given out to corporates. It formed a little more than 62 per cent of the total bad loans. This is the latest number I could find in this context. There is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that the situation has worsened since then.

Given this, as I said earlier, banks are not in the mood to lend to corporates. Hence, their overall lending for 2016-2017 has shrunk by half in comparison to 2015-2016.

The interesting thing is that while Indian banks may not be lending as much, the other sources of funding haven’t really dried up. Private placements of debt jumped up majorly in 2016-2017 in comparison to 2015-2016 and so did issuance of commercial paper by non-financial entities. Over and above this, the foreign direct investment into the country continued to remain strong. During 2016-2017, FDI worth Rs 2,53,500 crore came into the country. This was more or less similar to the amount that came in 2015-2016.

In total, the flow of financial resources to the commercial sector stood at Rs 1,262,000 crore, the RBI estimate suggests. This is around 12.1 per cent lower than the last year. Hence, the overall availability of money has shrunk but the situation is not as bad as bank lending data makes it out to be.

Basically, while banks may not want to lend to corporates, there are other sources of funding that do remain strong. Having said that, a fall of more than 12 per cent in total flow of financial resources to the commercial sector, is not a good sign on the economic front. This can only be corrected only after banks come back into the mood to lend to corporates. And that will only happen when banks get into a position where they are able to recover back from corporates a significant chunk of their bad loans. As of now no such signs are visible.

 

The column originally appeared in the Daily News and Analysis on April 25, 2017

In an Ocean of Corporate Defaulters, Vijay Mallya is a Small Fish

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The process of extraditing Vijay Mallya started on April 18, 2017. As a part of the process he was arrested and then later released on bail.

Newsreports suggest that the Indian government has taken up this issue with the British government at the highest level. What this suggests that there is a political will to get Mallya back to India and prosecute him. Indeed, that is a very good thing.

Having said that, in an ocean of corporate defaulters and bad loans of banks, Mallya is a very small fish. A newsreport on Moneycontrol points out that Mallya owes banks and the service tax department around Rs 9,000 crore. This includes the principal loan amount, interest on the loans as well as penalties.

Now compare this to the total gross non-performing assets(NPAs) or bad loans of Indian banks. These are loans which borrowers have defaulted on and stopped their repayment. As of December 31, 2016, the gross NPAs of banks stood at Rs 7,23,323 crore. The gross NPAs of public sector banks, to whom Mallya mainly owes money, stood at Rs 6,46,199 crore.

This comparison clearly tells us that Mallya is a small fry in the overall NPA pie. Let’s now look specifically at the corporate NPAs. As of March 31, 2016, the total corporate gross NPAs of public sector banks stood at Rs 3,36,124 crore or 11.95 per cent of the total loans given out to corporates. This is the latest number I could find. There is enough evidence to suggest that the situation has worsened since then. Compare this to what Mallya owes to banks and you know why Mallya is a small fish in the ocean of corporate defaulters.

While the government needs to put all its effort into getting Mallya back to India, it also needs to go after other defaulters sitting peacefully in India. This is something that hasn’t really happened up until now.

Let’s take a look at Table 1. It shows the non-performing assets recovered by the public sector banks over the years.

Table 1: NPAs of PSBs recovered through various channelsTable 1 does not make for a happy picture. The rate of recovery of non-performing assets or bad loans has fallen dramatically over the years. In 2013-2014, the total bad loans involved were Rs 1,49,149 crore. Of this Rs 28,052 crore was recovered. The rate of recovery worked out to 18.8 per cent.

In 2014-2015, the total bad loans involved were at Rs 2,26,529 crore. Of this Rs 27,849 crore was recovered. The rate of recovery worked out to 12.3 per cent. In 2015-2016, the rate of recovery fell further. The total bad loans involved were Rs 1,91,464 crore. Of this Rs 19,757 crore was recovered. The rate of recovery worked out to 10.3 per cent.

Hence, the rate of recovery of loans has fallen on the whole. How does the scenario look if we ignore Lok Adalats as a channel of recovery, given that the amounts involved there are on the smaller side. The rate of recovery improves but only a little.

In 2013-2014, 2014-2015 and 2015-2016, the rate of recovery works out to 20.2 per cent, 13.5 per cent and 13.6 per cent, respectively. Hence, the rate of recovery goes up a little if
we ignore Lok Adalats as a channel of recovery, but the difference is not much to change the overall conclusion.

If the government really wants to clean up the mess that prevails at public sector banks, it should be looking to improve the rate of recovery of bad loans. And that will only be possible if banks go after large defaulters with a lot of vigour, something that has not happened up until now.

This will happen only if there is political will for the same because ultimately public sector banks are owned by the government, and if the government wants something to happen it will happen. No bank employee is going to risk his career by going after a loan which has been defaulted on by a large corporate, only to find out that the corporate is friends with a politician.

In fact, the Economic Survey had some interesting data on corporates which had taken
on a lot of bank loans and are now finding it difficult to repay them. Many corporates to which banks lent money now have an interest coverage ratio of less than one. These companies are referred to as stressed companies. This basically means that the operating profit (earnings before interest and taxes) of these firms is lower than the interest that they need to pay on their outstanding debt, during a given period. Hence, these companies are simply not earning enough to pay the interest on the loans they had taken on.

The stressed companies with an interest coverage ratio of less than one, owe a little more than 40 per cent of the loans given out by Indian banks. It is these companies which are essentially holding Indian banks back.

In fact, even within stressed companies (i.e. companies with an interest coverage ratio of less than one) the problem is concentrated among a few borrowers. A mere 50 companies account for 71 per cent of the loans owed by the stressed companies. On an average these companies owe Rs 20,000 crore each to the banking system. The top 10 companies on an average owe Rs 40,000 crore apiece.

This is where the real problem of Indian banking lies. Only if the public sector banks  along with the government can clean this up, will the mess get cleaned up. Whether the government will show the same vigour as it has to get Mallya back to India, on this front, on that your guess remains as good as mine.

The column originally appeared on April 20, 2017, on Equitymaster

When the Bank Has a Problem

In last week’s column, I wrote about the Orwellian Economics of Indian banking. The basic premise of the column came from something that George Orwell wrote in his book Animal Farm: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

This is clearly being seen in Indian banking, in the way the banks treat loan defaulters. The small borrowers including small businesses, feel the full force of the bank’s system, in case they end up defaulting on the loan. Banks make all the effort to sell the collateral offered against the loan in order to recover the loan. In comparison, big corporates who default on the big loans, are treated with kid gloves.

A few readers emailed and wanted me to write a little more on this issue. So, here we go.

John Kenneth Galbraith writing in The Culture of Contentment makes an excellent point about the structure of the banking system. As he writes: “The man or woman who borrows $10,000 or $50,00 is seen as a person of average intelligence to be dealt with accordingly. The one who borrows a million or a hundred million is endowed with a presumption of financial genius that provides considerable protection from any unduly vigorous scrutiny.”

And how does this impact the way the banks lend money to prospective borrowers? As Galbraith writes: “This individual deals with the very senior officers of the bank of financial institution; the prestige of high bureaucratic position means that any lesser officer will be reluctant, perhaps fearing personal career damage, to challenge the ultimate decision. In plausible consequence, the worst errors in banking are regularly made in the largest amount by the highest officials.”

This is the self-destructive nature of the system. What this essentially means that the managers running banks are in awe of the promoters and managers of large corporates, who come to them to borrow money.

In the Indian context, what also does not help is the fact that public sector banking makes up for close to three-fourths of the banking system. A major part of the public-sector banks are ultimately owned by the central government. In this scenario, politicians end up influencing who the banks lend money to.

This at times includes companies and promoters whom the politicians are close to. The lending has nothing to do with the investment potential of a project for which money is being borrowed. This is a sort of a quid pro quo for the corporates financing the electoral costs of politicians and political parties.

In fact, sometimes the corporate promoter taking the loan brings in very little of his own money into the project. As former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said in a November 2014 speech: “The reason so many projects are in trouble today is because they were structured up front with too little equity, sometimes borrowed by the promoter from elsewhere. And some promoters find ways to take out the equity as soon as the project gets going, so there really is no cushion when bad times hit.”

What this means in simple English is that lenders with political connections invest very little of their own money into the project they are majorly financing through the bank debt. This is something that the banks should catch on to during the time they carry out the due diligence of the project. But they clearly don’t due to the reasons offered above and that is why the Indian banks are currently in the mess that they are.

So, what is the way out of it? The long-term solution lies in the fact that politicians stop interfering with the lending process of public sector banks. And that can only happen if most even if not all these banks are privatised.

Until then, it is worth remembering what John Maynard Keynes said about banks: “If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe your bank a million pounds, it has.”

 

The column originally appeared in the Bangalore Mirror on April 7, 2017

Public Sector Banking is Now in a Bigger Mess

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The break at writing the Diary turned out to be much longer than I had expected. The main reason for it will become obvious in the days to come.

A lot has happened during this period, including the Modi government’s defence of demonetisation, which has grown by leaps and bounds. Nevertheless, I thought of giving writing on demonetisation a break for the first piece for the Diary in 2017.

One thing that has got side-lined in the entire discussion on demonetisation is the fact that Indian public sector banks continue to remain in a mess. In fact, as we shall see the mess has only grown bigger in the recent past. As the RBI Financial Stability Report for December 2016 points out: “The stress on banking sector, particularly the public sector banks (PSBs) remain significant… PSBs as a group continued to record losses.”

The gross non-performing assets ratio or the bad loans of the PSBs, increased to 11.8 per cent as on September 30, 2016. This is a whopping increase
220 basis points from 9.6 per cent as of March 31, 2016. One basis point is one hundredth of a percentage.

The overall stressed assets of public sector banks jumped to 15.8 per cent of total loans. It had stood at 14.9 per cent as on March 31, 2016.

The stressed asset figure of 15.8 per cent was obtained by adding bad loans of 11.8 per cent with restructured assets of 4 per cent. This basically means that for every Rs 100 that the PSBs have given out as a loan, Rs 15.8 are in a dodgy territory, on an average.

Out of every Rs 100 of loans made by the banks, borrowers have stopped repaying loans worth Rs 11.8. Over and above that loans worth Rs 4 for every Rs 100 of loans given by the banks have been restructured. A restructured loan essentially implies that the borrower has been given a moratorium during which he does not have to repay the principal amount. In some cases, even the interest need not be paid. In some other cases, the tenure of the loan has been increased.

This is clearly a reason to worry. Nevertheless, there is a small good sign here as well. Unlike earlier, when banks were using the restructuring route to not recognise bad loans, that doesn’t seem to be happening much now. As on March 31, 2016, the restructured loans had stood at 4.9 per cent of total loans. This has fallen to 4 per cent of total loans as of September 30, 2016. Banks are now recognising bad loans as bad loans. The first step towards solving a problem is recognising that it exists.

The increase in bad loans of public sector banks can also be seen in the bad loans figure of large borrowers. The Reserve Bank of India categorises large borrowers as borrowers with an outstanding loan amount of Rs 5 crore or more. The Financial Stability Report points out: “The large borrowers registered significant deterioration in their asset quality.”

However, the report does not mention a clear bad loans figure for the large borrowers. As the RBI Financial Stability Report for June 2016 pointed out: “The gross non-performing assets(GNPA) ratio of large borrowers increased sharply from 7.0 per cent to 10.6 per cent during September 2015 to March 2016.” This basically means that as on September 30, 2016, the gross non-performing assets ratio or the bad loans of banks would have stood at greater than 10.6 per cent.

If we look at Figure 1, the bad loans ratio for the large borrowers seems to be greater than 15 per cent as of September 30, 2016.

Figure 1:

 

This basically means that the large borrowers are the ones who continue to create problems for public sector banks. Take a look at Figure 2.

Figure 2:

The large borrowers form 56.5 per cent of the total loans given by banks. Nonetheless, they form 88.4 per cent of the total bad loans of banks. And this is where the basic trouble is. The rate of recovery of bad loans by banks is also not good enough.

As a recent report in The Indian Express points out: “The rate of recovery of non-performing assets (NPAs) was 10.3 per cent, or Rs 22,800 crore, out of the total NPAs of Rs 221,400 crore during fiscal ended March 2016, against Rs 30,800 crore (12.4 per cent) of the total amount of Rs 248,200 crore reported in March 2015, data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said.”

Indeed, what is worrying is that the RBI points out that the bad loans of the PSBs could increase further. As the report points out: “Among the bank groups, PSBs may continue to register the highest GNPA ratio. Under baseline scenario, the PSBs’ GNPA ratio may increase to 12.5 per cent in March 2017 and then to 12.9 per cent in March 2018 from 11.8 per cent in September 2016, which could increase further under a severe stress scenario.”

Interestingly, the June 2016 Financial Stability Report had pointed out: “Among the bank-groups, PSBs may continue to register the highest GNPA ratio. Under the baseline scenario, their GNPA ratio may go up to 10.1 per cent by March 2017 from 9.6 per cent as of March 2016. However, under a severe stress scenario, it may increase to 11.0 per cent by March 2017.”

We have already crossed the severe stress level in September 2016, something which was forecast only for March 2017. This basically means that the government will have to keep pumping more and more capital into these banks in the years to come in order to keep them going. And that means a lot more money of taxpayers will essentially go down the drain.

Postscript: I would like to thank all readers who supported my recent petition to the President. I am in the process of planning the dispatch of the responses received to the President.

The column was originally published on Equitymaster on January 11, 2017

 

Demonetisation: Can Indian Banks Handle Low Interest Rates?

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One of the benefits of demonetisation that is being bandied around is lower interest rates. Suddenly, banks are flush with a huge amount of deposits. The demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes need to be handed over to banks as well as post offices by December 30, 2016. The total value of demonetised currency is Rs 15.44 lakh crore.

Between November 10, 2016 and December 10, 2016, Rs 12.44 lakh crore has made it back to the banks. Banks have issued new notes as well as notes which continue to be legal tender of Rs 4.61 lakh crore to the public over their counters and through their ATMs.

What this means that the deposits with the banks have gone up at a very rapid pace. Between November 11 and November 25, 2016, the aggregate deposits with banks went up by 4 per cent. This increase was within a span of just 15 days. (This is the latest figure that is available.)

Given this, huge and sudden jump in deposits, it is but natural that the banks will cut the interest rates that they offer on their deposits. At the same time, the overall lending by banks (non-food credit) during the 15-day period fell by 0.9 per cent.

Hence, a rise in deposits and a fall in loans will lead to banks cutting interest rates on their deposits and then on their loans. At lower interest rates both businesses as well as consumers will borrow and spend more. And this will help economic growth. Or so we are being now told.

This, as I have often argued in the past, is a very simplistic argument. (You can read one such argument here in the Letter that I write every Friday). Lower interest rates for borrowers are just one side of the equation. We also need to consider lower interest rates for savers, who form the other side of the equation. There can’t be any borrowers without savers. Look at Table 1.

Table 1: Financial Saving of the Household Sector.As can be seen from Table 1. Deposits form a bulk of the household financial savings. Between 2011-2012 and 2015-2016, the share of deposits in the household financial savings has come down. Nevertheless, it remains a major part of how people save. If interest rates on deposits come down, people need to save more to meet their savings goal. This means lesser consumption, which has an impact on economic growth. There is also a possibility of not saving enough and not meeting their savings goal, which again is not a good thing. This could mean not having an adequate amount of money for the education of children, among other things.

Further, in a country with very little social security, the senior citizens use fixed deposits to generate regular monthly income. A sudden fall in interest rates hurts them the most. This is another thing that needs to be kept in mind. Hence, fixed deposit interest rates at any point of time should be at least 150 to 200 basis points higher than the prevailing rate of inflation as measured by consumer price index. This is not a perfect formula, given that each one of us has our own rate of inflation, but then something is better than nothing.

Given that it is the largest borrower, it is understandable that the government keeps batting for lower interest rates. But lower interest rates are not necessarily good for everyone and mindlessly advocating lower interest rates as many experts and industrialists tend to do, is not good for anyone.

Take the case of banks. How responsibly can we expect them to lend? If we look at the recent record of the banks, they don’t inspire enough confidence. In fact, this is precisely the point made by Pallavi Chavan and Leonardo Gambacorta in the RBI Working Paper titled Bank Lending and Loan Quality: The Case of India. The paper was published on the RBI website on December 14, 2016.

The major point that Chavan and Gambacorta make is as follows: “We find that a one-percentage point increase (decrease) in loan growth is associated with an increase (decrease) of NPLs over total advances (NPL ratio) by 4.3 per cent in the long run.” What does this mean in simple English? It essentially means that for every one per cent increase in loans the bad loans ratio goes up by 4.3 per cent.

This basically means that when the times are good, Indian banks go easy on the lending and end up giving loans to even those who don’t deserve a loan. As Chavan and Gambacorta point out: “Banks tend to take on more risks during an upturn in credit growth and be more cautious whenever there is a downturn.”

So why do banks go overboard while lending while times are good? The simple reason is that when times are good there is far greater competition to lend and in this scenario, the lending conditions tend to get relaxed.

But there is another reason as well-crony capitalists. As Chavan and Gambacorta point out: “Well-capitalised banks tend to take on less credit risk”. What does this mean? It means that banks which have more capital tend to take less risk when it comes to giving out loans. Hence, banks which have less capital tend to take more risk while giving out loans. The question is which banks have less capital? Public sector banks.

The new generation private sector banks, which form a bulk of the private sector banking in India, are much better capitalised than the public sector banks. So, what is it that leads to public sector banks going easy on the lending? While Chavan and Gambacorta don’t say so, the answer perhaps lies in crony capitalism.

Politicians force public sector banks to lend to their businessman friends or crony capitalists. The projects are poorly financed with the businessmen putting very little of their own money at risk. As Raghuram Rajan said in a November 2014 speech: “The reason so many projects are in trouble today is because they were structured up front with too little equity, sometimes borrowed by the promoter from elsewhere. And some promoters find ways to take out the equity as soon as the project gets going, so there really is no cushion when bad times hit.”

To conclude, those talking about lower interest rates leading to higher lending to businesses, should also keep this in mind. Public sector banks are not adept at lending, at least not as long as they remain public sector banks, which allows politicians in power to interfere

(The column originally appeared on Equitymaster on December 16, 2016)