Pace of new bad loan formation has decelerated: RBI

New Delhi: RBI Deputy Governor S S Mundra on Tuesday said the pace of formation of new non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans has decelerated although some banks have posted losses for the first quarter of the current financial year due to higher provisioning.

He also said most of the banks are adequately capitalised and the government has promised additional capital if they require.

In a bid to shore up cash-strapped public sector banks, the government last month announced infusion of Rs 22,915 crore capital in 13 lenders including SBI and Indian Overseas Bank to revive loan growth that has hit a two-decade low.

As far as bad loans are concerned, he said, they are showing a mixed trend.

"When I look at individual results, there are number of banks for whom it appears that the worst is over but then there are other banks...Still they are in middle of it and they would need to do some work before they get out of it," he said.

"It would be naive to believe that there won't be any NPA formation but the pace of new NPA formation has clearly decelerated, that is what the major trend is," he added.

Gross NPAs of the public sector banks had surged from 5.43 percent (Rs 2.67 lakh crore) of advances in 2014-15 to 9.32 percent (Rs 4.76 lakh crore) in 2015-16.

As per the latest Financial Stability Report by RBI, the Gross NPA ratio for public sector banks may go up to 10.1 percent by March 2017 under the baseline scenario.

Many banks including Bank of India, Dena Bank, and Central Bank of India, reported losses for the quarter ended June 30, due to a sharp jump in provisions for NPAs on account of an asset quality review mandated by the RBI in December.

Talking about the recapitalisation, Mundra said the Finance Minister has indicated that if there is a need the government would be ready to provide additional capital.

"So, as far as the present situation is concerned I think most of the banks are adequately capitalised to take care of minimum regulatory requirements. We will keep a watch. As we move into the year we will see how things pan out," he said.

On controversial virtual currency bitcoin, Mundra said: "This entire area fintech as we mentioned...You should not be stifling the innovation. Be mindful and what they call as regulator sand marks means you allow some of the experiments to happen under the control conditions so that the positive or the negative fallouts can be well understood and calibrated."