SBI tackles the problem

Largest lender's guidance on NPAs is clear but ambitious

State Bank of India (SBI) recorded a historically high quarterly loss in January-March 2017-18, according to the results released last week. The loss, of Rs 77.18 billion, meant that the bank made a full-year loss of Rs 45.56 billion. The main cause of the loss was provisioning for non-performing assets, which jumped more than 100 per cent to over Rs 240 billion. The ratio of the bank’s gross non-performing assets now stands at almost 11 per cent, and the total amount is a Rs 2.2 trillion — a significant proportion of national lending. The scale of the loss was considerably