Syndicate Bank adds fresh NPAs of Rs 12,200 crore in FY16

Syndicate Bank's fresh bad loans rose more than two-fold to Rs 12,200 crore in 2015-16 ballooning the size of its gross non-performing assets to Rs 13,800 crore at the end of the financial year.
The state-run lender had witnessed fresh bad loans of Rs 5,499 crore in 2014-15, as per a presentation made at the analysts meet today.
Updating about the NPA movement for fiscal ended March, Syndicate Bank said its gross NPAs were at Rs 6,442 crore at the beginning of the year.
There was a deduction to the tune of Rs 4,810 crore due to recoveries, upgradation and write-offs. However, fresh NPA addition to the tune of Rs 12,200 crore led to gross bad loans rising to Rs 13,832 crore--6.7 per cent of the gross advances as of March 2016.

The write-off was of the order of Rs 1,430 crore during the fiscal, while Rs 1,260 crore came from recoveries and Rs 2,120 crore came under the category of 'upgradation and decrease due to operations'.
The write-off also included Rs 883 crore with respect to provision under fraud accounts identified during the year. The bank had detected major fraud at three branches in Jaipur region, which was spanning for more than four preceding years.

Sector wise, Syndicate Bank's NPAs levels were the highest from iron & steel, infrastructure, road & ports, power, and textiles.
Earlier this week, the bank reported a net loss of Rs 1,643.49 crore for 2015-16, against a net profit of Rs 1,522.93 crore in 2014-15 due to mounting bad loans.

Consequently, the bank more than doubled the provisioning for bad loans and contingencies to Rs 4,348.10 crore, from Rs 2,011.33 crore in 2014-15.
As on March 31, 2016, government shareholding in the bank stood at 65.17 per cent, others 14.95 per cent and rest by FIIs, corporates, mutual funds & UTI, insurance companies and banks and financial institutions.
Till the period, Syndicate Bank had 3,765 domestic branches and one office overseas.
Going forward, the bank will focus on retail, agriculture and MSME, mid corporates, business process re-engineering, set up national back office and expand its branch network at focus areas.