The net profit of 17 public-sector banks was lower than that of four-year-old private-sector lender Bandhan Bank Ltd alone in the September quarter of the current financial year. While the combined net profit of these public-sector banks was to the tune of ₹466.4 crores in July-September of FY20, Kolkata-based Bandhan Bank alone reported a profit of ₹971.8 crores, as per the data compiled by Capitaline report.
These state-owned banks would have recorded an even worse net profit if IDBI Bank Ltd, with a loss of ₹3,458.8 crores, was not classified as a private bank after being acquired by the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) earlier this year, LiveMint reported.
This comparison does not include the financials of Union Bank of India. The bank reported a net loss of ₹1194 crores in the quarter.
The losses of the state-owned banks are a result of losses by banks that brought down the profit of the entire group. For instance, Allahabad Bank reported a loss of ₹2,114 crores, Indian Overseas Bank ₹2,253.6 crore and UCO Bank ₹892 crores. These overshadowed the ₹3,011.73-crore profit of State Bank of India (SBI), ₹736.68 cr of Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank’s ₹507 crore profit.
Amid all this, the burden of non-performing assets (NPAs) continues to take a toll on the profitability of PSU banks as these banks have to keep aside a huge sum of money as provisions. Total provisions of PSU banks amount to ₹39,310 crore, which fell 18.2% on a year-on-year basis but was higher than ₹19,207.09 crores provided by other private-sector banks.
A major chunk of the provisions was for ageing of bad loans. Bank of Baroda Executive Director S L Jain recently said that of the ₹3,425 crore bad loan provisions, around ₹2,500 crores were for ageing of NPAs.
The existing bad loans, lack of credit demand and risk aversion by banks has contributed to a sharp decline in credit growth.
A Credit Suisse report on 11 November said that bank lendings slowed to 8% at the end of September. The report said that this slowdown was driven by both public and private sector banks. PSU banks witnessed the fall in growth from 8% to 5% year-on-year, while private sector bank growth dipped from 22% to 14%.
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