5 banks led by BoB post Rs 6,751-crore loss as bad loans mount

As many as five public sector banks led by Bank of Baroda (BoB) today reported a combined loss of Rs 6,751 crore for the three months to March 2016 as bad loans situation worsened further.
Other banks that have reported loss in the fourth quarter are UCO Bank, Central Bank of India, Allahabad Bank and Dena Bank.
Non-performing assets or bad loans in some cases have breached RBI's tolerance level that could result in prompt corrective action. As per RBI directives, a prompt corrective action may be enforced in cases where gross NPA has crossed 10 per cent.
BoB alone reported a loss of Rs 3,230.14 crore for the March quarter, the second highest quarterly loss in the Indian banking history.

The asset quality of banks worsened further with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans rising to 9.99 per cent of gross advances as of March 2016, from 3.72 per cent a year ago.
As a result, provisions zoomed up to Rs 6,857 crore from Rs 1,817 crore in the year-ago period.

BoB was followed by Kolkata-based UCO Bank reporting a net loss of Rs 1,715.1 crore as against a net profit of Rs 209.2 crore.
The gross NPAs as a percentage to total advances rose significantly to 15.43 per cent in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal as against 6.76 per cent in the same period a year ago.

Consequently, provisions surged to Rs 2,344.8 crore as compared with Rs 968.38 crore in the year-ago period.
Another mid-sized Central Bank of India also booked a loss of Rs 898 crore during the last quarter of 2015-16.
Provisions rose almost four-fold to Rs 2,286.66 crore during the quarter compared with Rs 617.17 crore in the same quarter previous fiscal as he gross NPAs jumped to 11.95 per cent as against 6.09 per cent in the same period a year ago.
At the same time, Allahabad Bank and Dena Bank reported a net loss of Rs 581.13 crore and Rs 326.38 crore, respectively for the quarter.

Allahabad Bank's provisions almost quadrupled to Rs 2,487.15 crore as against Rs 631.11 crore as bank's gross NPAs rose to 9.76 per cent as on March 2016, from 5.46 per cent a year ago.
In case of Dena Bank, the gross NPA increased to 9.9 per cent as against 5.4 per cent for the quarter ended March 2015. Provisions nearly doubled to Rs 901 crore as against Rs 478 crore in the same quarter a year ago.