MFIs suffer note ban blues; stressed loans balloon to 14%

The demonetisation move has severely affected microlenders, with their stressed assets ratio shooting up to 14.1 per cent as of March 31, 2017.
The portfolio at risk, measured by loans which are unpaid for over 30 days, increased to 14.1 per cent from 0.40 per cent in the year ago period, the Microfinance Institutions Network, an industry body that acts as a self regulatory organisation, said in a statement.
"This abnormal increase in PAR is attributed to lower recoveries post demonetisation on November 9, 2016 which resulted in shortage of cash and related adverse impact on income and livelihoods of low income households," it said.

The PAR90 ratio, of assets which are unpaid for over 90 days, grew to 8.18 per cent from the year-ago's 0.2 per cent. The PAR180, where loans are unpaid for over 180 days, was relatively lower at 0.22 per cent from the 0.1 per cent in the year ago period.
The overall outstanding loans of the industry grew 26 per cent during the fiscal to Rs 1.06 lakh crore. According to MFIN, the same aggregate gross loan portfolio had grown by 84 per cent in the year-ago period.
The aggregate gross loan portfolio of the companies stood at Rs 46,487 crore as on March 31, 2017 as against Rs 53,233 crore in the year-ago period.

The body's chief executive Ratna Vishwanathan said The trend of a decrease in growth continued in the last quarter of the year driven largely by the impact of withdrawal of high value notes from circulation.

She said the disbursements by the microlenders have also gone down by 25 per cent.
The chief executive, however, exuded confidence that the situation will improve soon with liquidity coming in.
Five states are cornering 56 per cent of the total disbursements, namely Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Odisha and West Bengal.
From a geographical spread basis, the highest in South India at 31 per cent, followed by North India at 27 per cent, West India at 24 per cent and East India at 18 per cent, the body said.