Bank frauds increase, private sector lenders make more write-offs

Private banks in FY23 accounted for 74% of amounts written off due to fraud

The Asset Quality Review of 2015 by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has served its purpose and the "era of loan write-offs’ is over, said State Bank of India’s chairman this week.

Since Financial Year 2015-16 (FY16), all banks have written off more than Rs 1.01 trillion due to fraud (based on the date of reporting of frauds), or roughly Rs 13,000 crore annually. Banks reported about Rs 3,000 crore in write-offs in FY16, or 0.04 per cent of total credit that year.

In comparison, write-offs due to frauds accounted for 0.03 per cent of total credit in FY23,