Public sector banks recover Rs 1.2 lakh cr from bad loans in 2018-19

Public sector banks (PSBs) have recovered close to Rs 1.2 lakh crore from stressed assets during the financial ended March, primarily helped by resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), an official said. During the first half of the previous fiscal, banks recovered Rs 60,713 crore from bad loans. "Due to non-resolution of some big accounts referred under NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal), PSBs could not achieve the resolution target of Rs 1.80 lakh crore. But, these accounts should be resolved in the current financial year," the official said.

Banks recovered close to Rs 55,000 crore from the NCLT resolution, the official said. "Compared to Rs 74,562 crore in 2017-18, the recovery in the previous financial year nearly doubled to Rs 1.2 lakh crore," the official said.

Two large accounts of Essar Steel and Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd are still pending to be resolved. It is expected that these two accounts should be resolved in the next few months and recoveries from these could be around Rs 50,000 crore. JSW Steel had revised its offer from Rs 11,000 crore to Rs 18,000 crore and later to over Rs 19,000 crore, whereas Tata Steel's last offer was at Rs 17,000 crore after it had refused to revise its bid. ArcelorMittal has made a bid of Rs 42,000 crore for Essar Steel.

According to the official, consolidation among public sector banks and higher recoveries by state-owned lenders will be on the government's agenda in the current financial year. Referring to the liquidity crisis in the non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), the official said that there are issues with both solvency and liquidity in these companies.

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This bank with worst asset quality is waging a war on bad loans

IDBI Bank, the lender with India’s worst bad-loan ratio, is seeking to curtail its soured debt by selling Rs 100 billion ($1.4 billion) of stressed assets and stepping up efforts to recover dues from delinquent borrowers. 

“We have set up a war room to focus on recovering the non-performing loans while another team is keeping a check on loans showing early signs of stress,” Chief Executive Officer Rakesh Sharma said by phone. The lender wants to sell stressed loans “by June-end to quicken the pace of clean-up exercise”. 

Burdened with the world’s worst bad-loan ratio, Indian lenders are stepping up efforts to recover delinquent debt after the Reserve Bank of India announced tougher rules. The Mumbai-based lender’s turnaround efforts gathered pace after Life Insurance Corporation of India, the nation’s largest insurer, bought a controlling stake from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. 

The insurer has infused more than Rs 210 billion into IDBI to bolster its risk buffers and bring it out of the regulator’s emergency programme that restricts lending. 

IDBI Bank will emerge from the Reserve Bank’s prompt corrective action framework by September as the bad-loan ratio narrows and profits rise, Sharma said. Banks sanctioned by the regulator are restricted from lending and expanding their network while they mend their balance sheets. IDBI’s gross bad-loan ratio stood at about 30 per cent as of December 31, an exchange filing shows. 

The lender is also planning to raise about Rs 10 billion by selling its holding in National Stock Exchange and National Stock Depository over the next month, the chief executive said on Sunday. According to Sharma, the bank will also complete the sale of its insurance and mutual fund units in 2019. 

Shares of IDBI Bank rose 4 per cent at 11 a.m. in Mumbai trading. It was the best performer on the 12-stock Nifty PSU Bank Index, which gained 2.6 per cent. 

Sharma also shared his views on the Iran payments business and capital raising. Comments in the following Q&A have been edited and condensed: 

Will IDBI consider raising capital this year? 

The bank will raise tier I and tier II capital in 2019. We will tap the public market to raise these funds and LIC will participate in that round to retain their majority stake in the bank. We would be coming into the market around September after our profit trajectory improves. 

Why is IDBI getting into the Iran oil payments business? 

Indian refiners’ payments for Iranian oil shipments were earlier handled solely by Uco Bank. Now, the government has allowed IDBI Bank also to route these payments. We are working out the processes and by March-end, we should start processing these payments. As refiners are required to deposit any money destined for Iran without interest with us, the bank’s cost of funds and borrowings will come down. 

Source- Economic Times

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Useful tips to recover bad loans/NPA Acs

1.Every branch should maintain a master file having the lists of eligible star sanjeenvani accounts for the year, monthly sascal and NPA borrowers. The Lists should be sorted village wise. While going for recovery, our focus should not to cover many villages, rather to cover a single village and meet with each and every single account of that village coming under the three lists.

2. Ensure to get the mobile phone number of the borrower immediately. If the borrower is not available, then get their family members contact numbers.  Please make a note if there is any landmark near the borrower’s residence. Ensure to update these details in Finacle DC for future purposes.

3.Whosoever is going for recovery, always carry with yourself the below set of things – Mobile number updating forms , L444C or any other loan renewal document , OTS offer letter , Cash deposit and withdrawal challans. This comes easy to deal with borrowers.

4. What I believe that there is no use of visiting the same customer again and again , Identify and try to read his mind during the first visit only  that what type of customer he is and what’s the way to handle him in future like follow up through phone only , regular visits , settlement ,any legal action etc.

5. Whatever is the promises and dates of borrowers, note their words , take their signature and after returning to the branch, update the same in the master file so that whosoever is the next person going for recovery, has some baseline. Also try to know what will be the source of repayment according to the customer. If it is karkhana or any other person, try to contact them also.

6.Whosoever is going for recovery, avoid going inside the house and ensure that the communication should be outside the house only so that the passers and neighborhoods see that the bankers visited that particular household. Some borrowers are very sensitive about their images.

7. At least in a week, use Hacs menu and figure out the credit balances present in the saving account of NPA accounts. Transfer the balances immediately and reduce the NPA figures of your branch.

8. Also on daily basis, before proceeding for day end have a look at the cash vouchers and check if there any recovery in NPA account and parked in the office account . If it is so, immediately appropriate it to the account and reduce the NPA figures of your branch.

9. If at some day you feel that today Karkhana is releasing sugar payments or employees will get salary today and possibly customer can withdraw money from ATM, then at frequent intervals run menu – LADSP (LOAN DEMAND SATISFACTION PROCESS) . This will satisfy the demand raised in the loan account from the saving account of the customer and no need for waiting till day end.

10. As soon as you receive the first sascal list from the controlling office , address the technical sascal first as it will bring down the figures of your list and of course ,lesser will be the pages of sascal, lesser will be our tension.

11. Always understand Time value of money, There are many cases where we unnecessarily wait to get more money and later we lose that money also what we were previously getting. It’s the need of the hour that we cannot wait and increase the age of NPA unnecessarily. Always remember, A stitch in time saves nine.

12.  You can only exercise your power when you know what is your power ?  Modified NPA management policy and Liberal OTS schemes are now available. Be decisive, get the thorough study and utilize it fully.

13. I understand that it’s extremely difficult to initiate legal action for every NPA account. But at least Pick 2,3 strong cases and start the legal action. If it is Sarfaesi , immediately go for 13(2) , pre possession and drag it till the day of paper publication and E auction. Let there will be a fear created amongst the borrowers that we bankers can do everything when it comes to saving our mother institution. If every branch will do at least 2,3 such cases , many NPA borrowers will upgrade their account due to fear . Also publicize your action in such a manner that it will reach in the ear of each and every NPA borrower. Do less Sing more.

14.  Education loan students are very image conscious. When we go to their residence for recovery, often they will be at some other place for job. Try to take out the details of their job and company. After returning, spare some 10-15 minutes and try to figure out the company’s profile by using the social networking. If possible, try to contact them through their official email ids.It will create a fear in them of losing the job as these companies are very conscious of their images .

15. There are many customers of the branches who require regular visits and they wait till the last day and every time they come in sascal, intimate them that whatever the cost involved in the regular visits, bank will recover them from their loan account as follow up charges. Make a note of their visits,take their signature and if possible, recover them also in some cases as follow up/notice charges.

16. At last I would like to say that recovery is a long continuous effort. *Focus should be on recovery not on reporting* . Most of the times , efforts for the day will bear fruits in the next week and possibly credit goes to the person who will visit the borrower on that day . But that should not bother us. After all we all work for the same purpose.

Source-Blog reader

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Large borrowers fall in line after RBI’s one-day default norm

A central bank rule mandating disclosure of loan default even if it is just by a day is putting the fear of god in big borrowers. Borrowers, who owe more than ₹5 crore, are gradually regularizing repayments following the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) 12 February circular asking banks to disclose any payment default.

Responding to a Right to Information (RTI) query from Mint, RBI said the total outstanding loans of borrowers, who defaulted on bank loans (under the one-day default norm), has declined more than 60% to ₹55,070 crore on 30 September 2018 from ₹1.53 trillion on 30 June. To be sure, these are not soured assets, but loans where borrowers did not pay instalments on time. However, the data also shows that one-day defaults dipped to a low of ₹50,306 crore on 31 August from ₹91,280 crore on 31 July and rose 9% in September.

"There is a clear change in borrowers’ behaviour and banks are also more alert in taking up these incidents. A message has been sent to errant borrowers that defaults would not be tolerated,” said Arijit Basu, managing director of the State Bank of India.

Large borrowers, experts say, have started paying up on time due to fears of their companies being referred to the bankruptcy court and eventually losing control of their assets.

In its circular, the central bank asked lenders to institute a board-approved policy for resolution of stressed assets. Banks were told to start the resolution process as soon as a borrower defaults on a term loan and were given 180 days to cure it, failing which the account would have to be referred to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

Under previous guidelines, lenders had the freedom to initiate the resolution process after 60 days of default.

“Earlier, only the NPA (non-performing asset) classification was taken seriously by borrowers, not defaults. That has changed as banks no longer want any stressed asset on their books and, subsequently, the amount of loans under special mention accounts (SMA) has also dropped,” said Basu. To some extent, the introduction of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) had also helped, he added.

Asset quality of banks improved in Q2 FY19, with gross NPAs as a percentage of total loans declining from 11.5% in March 2018 to 10.8% in September 2018.

The one-day default norms were initially not received well by the industry and a section of lenders. So much so that in April last year, RBI deputy governor N.S. Vishwanathan explained in a speech that the revised framework tries to reduce the arbitrage borrowers are currently enjoying while raising funds through borrowing from banks, as against raising funds from the capital markets.

He had said that if a borrower delays coupon or principal payment on a corporate bond even for a day, the market would penalize the borrower heavily, but defaults in bank borrowings have not led to a similar reaction. “There is a need to change this and restore the sanctity of the debt contract, lest bank debt becomes subordinate even to equity,” he had said.

According to RBI data, the top 100 large borrowers accounted for 16% of gross loans and 21.2% of gross NPAs of banks at the end of the September quarter of FY19.

For large borrowers, the proportion of outstanding loans with any signs of stress (including SMA 0, 1, 2, restructured loans and NPAs) has come down from 30.4% in March 2018 to 25.4% in September 2018.

Some experts say the one-day default norms are hard on some borrowers, who default due to genuine business concerns.

Former RBI deputy governor S.S. Mundra said that while it is critical to keep strict timelines for monitoring credit quality, it has burdened bankers who are already pressed for time.

“In some cases, where the defaults occur owing to genuine cash flow issues, banks nonetheless have to start the resolution process, arrange meetings and look for revival plans,” Mundra said. “This has to be done each time a borrower defaults and it has to be stopped as soon as they repay, leading to an exercise that could have been avoided had there been a buffer period.”

However, the former RBI deputy governor added that not only has IBC changed the way a borrower looks at the system, but bankers also have begun timely stress assessment exercises.

Source- Livemint

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PSU banks recovered large amount of bad loans in 4 years to FY18, says minister

Public sector banks recovered Rs 2.33 lakh crore worth of bad loans during the four years from financial year 2014-15 to fiscal 2017-18, Parliament was informed Friday. As per RBI data on global operations for PSBs, during the financial years 2014-15 to 2017-18, PSBs recovered Rs 2,33,339 crore, of which Rs 32,693 crore was from written-off accounts, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

He was responding to a question asked on non-performing assets (NPAs) and write-offs by public sector banks (PSBs) during April 2014 to April 2018 and the amount recovered by them. Shukla said, write-offs of NPAs is a regular exercise of the banks to clean up their balance sheet, tax benefit and capital optimisation.

“Borrowers of such written-off loans continue to be liable for repayment. Recovery under relevant legal processes from written-off accounts may extend beyond the financial year in which the account is written off,” he said.

During 2014-15 to 2017-18, the PSBs witnessed reduction in their NPAs due to write-offs (including compromise) to the tune of Rs 3,16,515 crore.

Aggressive lending practices, wilful default/loan defaults as well as corruption in some cases and economic slowdown were the primary reasons for spurt in stressed assets, he further said. Country’s largest lender SBI, stood on a gross bad loans of Rs 2.02 lakh crore as on September 30, 2018, showed the data furnished by the minister which was sourced from the Reserve Bank.

Among the rest of the 20 PSBs, Punjab National Bank had grossed NPAs to the tune of Rs 80,993 crore by end of second quarter of the current fiscal, IDBI Bank Rs 50,690 crore, Bank of India Rs 50,338 crore, Union Bank of India Rs 48,575 crore.

Bank of Baroda also had NPAs to the tune of Rs 46,454 crore, Canara Bank Rs 41,907 crore, Central Bank of India Rs 37,411 crore, Indian Overseas Bank Rs 35,607 crore and UCO Bank Rs 28,822 crore.

In reply to a query on gross advances done, the minister said aggregate gross advances of PSBs increased from Rs 16.98 lakh crore as at end-March 2008 to Rs 45.91 lakh crore by the end of March 2014.

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SBI and BoI seek bids for NPAs worth Rs 7,000 crore

Seven months after the Supreme Court (SC) ordered the maintenance of status quo on insolvency proceedings against manufacturing firm Jayaswal Neco Industries, State Bank of India (SBI) on Thursday sought bids from asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) for the company. The lender said it already has a bid in hand from an investor interested in buying the asset and the auction will be through the Swiss challenge method, based on the existing bid. “Besides the fund-based outstanding of Rs 1,362.89 crore at reserve price of Rs 885.89 crore, the bidder would also be required to furnish guarantee/100% cash margin for the non-fund-based outstanding to the extent of Rs 171 crore, or the non-fund-based outstanding as on the date of assignment, whichever is higher, subject to a maximum of `219 crore (non-fund-based),” SBI said in an auction notice.

 In April, the apex court had passed its order directing status quo after Jayaswal Neco pleaded that it should not have been subjected to insolvency proceedings because a majority of its lenders had agreed to a restructuring plan for the company’s debt. Jayaswal Neco owes its lenders Rs 3,522 crore and was named in the RBI’s second list of large non-performing assets (NPAs) which were to be resolved under the bankruptcy law, unless resolved by other means by mid-December.
SBI is seeking a 100% cash bid for the asset and the reserve price implies it is willing to take a haircut of up to 65%.
The bank has also put on sale two other bad-loan accounts — Ahmedabad-based Sona Alloys (Rs 648 crore) and MCL Global Steel (Rs 100 crore). For Sona Alloys, it will entertain bids that offer a mix of cash payments and security receipts (SRs), with haircuts ranging between 70% for a full-cash offer and 62% for a bid paying 25% in cash and the rest through SRs. For MCL Global, only full-cash bids will be accepted, with the haircut capped at 68%.

Bank of India (BoI) also invited bids for 44 NPA accounts worth a total Rs 4,703 crore on Thursday. The accounts include Dighi Port (Rs 273 crore), Lavasa (Rs 328 crore), Sona Alloys (Rs 23.45 crore) and Visa Steel (Rs 67 crore). Visa Steel, too, is a second-list account.  BoI has earlier made multiple attempts to palm off some of these accounts such as Lavasa, Visa Steel and Jyoti Power during the last few months.

BoI’s recoveries from sale of bad assets during the September quarter did not match its expectations. Dinabandhu Mohapatra, MD and chief executive officer, BoI, said, “We have recovered around Rs 282 crore during this quarter and that process will continue through Q3 and Q4 also. We have identified accounts worth `10,000 crore for sale, from which we are expecting good recoveries.”

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4 PSU banks put up NPAs worth over Rs 7,500cr for sale

At least four large public sector banks have put up nearly Rs 7,500 crore worth of non-performing assets (NPAs) on sale to asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) and other financial institutions.

Lenders including State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Andhra Bank have decided to sell a large part of their NPA exposures to accounts which are undergoing resolutions at various insolvency courts.

“We expect to recover a large part of these assets on a cash basis. This also helps us avoid delays in resolution due to the excessive litigation,” said the head of a large public sector bank.

On November 20, Bank of Baroda listed 35 bad loan accounts worth Rs 4,237 crore for sale on its website. These include: Jindal India Thermal Power (Rs 334.93 crore), Rathi Steel & Power (Rs 290.52 crore) and Rolta India (Rs 287.38 crore).

“The interested ARCs/ banks/ NBFCs/FIs can conduct due diligence of these assets with immediate effect after submitting expression of interest and executing a non-disclosure agreement with the Bank,” BoB said on its website.

Similarly, state-owned Andhra Bank has invited bids for the proposed sale of its NPAs comprising 53 accounts, with a principal balance of Rs 1,552.96 crore on a cash basis only. The e-bidding will take place on December 3. The bank will execute the assignment agreements and fund transfer on or before December 10.

Another government-owned lender Dena Bank proposed sale of 84 NPAs, with an outstanding exposure of Rs 3,324 crore, to be sold through an e-bidding process on November 29. The country’s largest lender SBI had also put up 11 bad loan accounts for sale to ARCs and financial companies to recover dues worth nearly Rs 1,019 crore.

Price still pinches

“Banks are putting up many distressed assets on sale, but pricing continues to be an issue. However, with more cash deals and push for a clean-up from the regulator has helped us garner a better price. They (banks) also want to avoid the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) February 12 circular. Hence, they are putting up more assets on sale,” said a chief of a large ARC.

The circular mandates all lenders to push all borrower accounts for resolution under the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC) if a successful recovery has not been made within 180 days of the loan turning into an NPA.

Banks and ARCs have been negotiating hard over the past several years. Given the rush to recover loans and increasing supply of bad loans, banks are willing to take more hair-cuts or losses on its loans than before for immediate cash recovery.

Asset Reconstruction Company (India), or Arcil, one of the country's largest ARCs, plans to buy about Rs 5,400 crore worth of stressed assets from banks. For this, it plans to raise additional Rs 1,500 crore in the next six months.

In FY18, Arcil acquired about Rs 2,700 crore worth of assets, while the same for the industry stood at over Rs 20,000 crore, said Pramod Gupta, Arcil’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

With a clear focus on retail and mid-sized distressed assets, Arcil's CEO and Managing Director Vinayak Bahuguna said his firm is selectively looking at some of the industrial assets too. “In the mid-sized segment, we are looking at companies with debt up to Rs 5,000 crore. We are looking at steel, textile and road projects and some select stressed power projects.”

In Q2, Bank of India had put up a total of Rs 10,000 crore worth of NPAs on sale through auction. The bank’s CEO and MD Dinabandhu Mohapatra said the management is negotiating resolutions for power assets worth Rs 3,000 crore. Till March, cumulative estimates suggest that about one-third of the bad loans of banks have been purchased by ARCs.

As on September, banks are sitting on a huge pile of NPAs worth over Rs 10.50 lakh crore on its balance sheets, creating an opportunity for ARCs and domestic and foreign investors.

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IBC resolve large amount of NPA, Banks recover more than half of their money

Creditors have recovered Rs 49,783 crore, or almost 56% of their admitted claims, from 32 stressed companies where insolvency resolution plans were approved by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) by the end of June, showed data compiled by the insolvency regulator.

Despite the average 44% haircut that the creditors in general had to take in these cases, analysts said the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) has performed much better than the earlier system where the recovery process was strenuous and yielded too little. Of course, the headline numbers are good primarily because of Bhushan Steel, which accounted for close to 64% of the total claims by these 32 firms and an equal amount in recovery.

Financial creditors, such as banks, have managed to recover Rs 47,768 crore, or a little over 55% of their claims, showed the data by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, compiled on the basis of the inputs provided by resolution professionals (RPs). Operational creditors — including raw material suppliers — have received Rs 2,015 crore, making up for 61% of their claims.

Financial creditors, expectedly, made up for the bulk (96%) of the total claims admitted by RPs. “The IBC is way better than the earlier system, where recovery used to take a lot of time, and wherever a one-time settlement took place, the amount was usually not more than 20-30%. Also, many stressed firms were allowed debt restructuring, which further worsened their state of health. In contrast, the IBC stipulates a time-bound resolution of default cases, which is good,” said Manoj Kumar, partner and head (M&A and insolvency resolution services) at consultancy Corporate Professionals Capital.

However, analysts said the ratio may change for the worse in the coming weeks once the resolution process of some of the large stressed companies such as Bhushan Power and Steel, Lanco Infratech and Alok Industries are factored in, as haircuts in these cases are expected to be much higher. For instance, against the admitted claims worth Rs 47,000 crore by financial creditors, the highest offer (by JSW Steel) is only Rs 19,350 crore. Lanco Infra, with Rs 45,263 crore in debt from financial creditors, is feared to be heading for liquidation as the lenders have reportedly rejected an offer. In case of Alok Industries, against the debt of Rs 29,500 crore, Reliance and JM Financial have placed a joint bid of only Rs 5,050 crore.

Nevertheless, once these old cases — where chances of a grand turnaround without massive investments are remote — are settled and new cases come in, recovery would be much higher, a senior government official said. This is because creditors can invoke insolvency proceedings against defaulting firms very early when chances of turning them around would be much higher and easier.

Interestingly, in nine of these 32 cases, insolvency proceedings were triggered by the corporate debtors themselves, while 14 were by financial creditors and nine by operational creditors. As many as 12 cases were handled by the NCLT’s Kolkata bench, and eight by the Mumbai bench.

Source- Financial Express

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