Misreporting of NPAs

Private banks must explain the discrepancy

The biggest worry for India’s economy over the past three years has been the growing mountain of non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks. For the most part, all the attention has been on the worsening NPA levels in public sector banks (PSBs), which account for roughly 70 per cent of the banking sector. Broadly speaking, banks had started providing for such bad loans by taking a hit on their profits. But as if the uncertainty over bad loans in the PSBs wasn’t enough, it has now emerged that at least three well-known private sector banks had grossly underreported their NPAs. Going