A bank has different types of assets: they include physical assets, such as equipment and land; personal loans including interest from consumer and business loans; reserves, or holdings of deposits of the central bank and vault cash; and investments, or securities.

Asset quality is one of the most critical areas in determining the overall condition of a bank. Loans typically comprise a majority of a bank’s assets and carry the greatest amount of risk to their capital. Securities may also comprise a large portion of the assets and also contain significant risks.

On account of regular usage, the machineries lose their quality and the performance slows down. The output from one machine at the initial stage cannot be the same after ten years. It is a like car or two-wheeler or three-wheeler.  The old adage about how your brand new car instantly plunges in value as soon as you drive off the lot? There is some truth to it. Cars tend to depreciate quickly, similarly electronic items such as gadgets, medical equipments, homes, lathe machines and machineries in factories also lose their value when newer brands and newer models arrive in market.  This is known as deterioration in asset quality. When it comes to value in terms of money, the asset purchased ten years ago may have market value much lower than the original value. For example the car purchased during 2000 for an amount of 10.00 lakhs may have market value up to 2.00 lakhs during 2016. The difference namely 800000 is known as depreciation. Depreciation is known as loss in terms of money when it comes to physical assets.

A Non-performing asset (NPA) is defined as a credit facility in respect of which the interest and/or instalment of principal has remained ‘past due’ for a specified period of time. In simple terms, an asset is tagged as non-performing when it ceases to generate income for the lender. The borrowers are expected to pay the principal amount and interest as per terms and conditions of the contract. When they do not pay on due dates, they are considered to be bad debts or non performing assets.

In the recent past India witnessed Punjab National Bank, IL&FS, IDBI Bank, PMC Bank, Laxmi Vilas Bank, Yes Bank and many others in queue waiting to be shut down. 

In the case of a loan account, the liability may be 10.00 lakhs and when it is considered as non performing asset, the value gets deteriorated. There is no guarantee that the bank may recover the entire principal amount and eligible interest from the borrower.  The chances of recovery sometimes become zero also. In such a case, the bank may be having 100000 crore assets in the books of the bank and in real terms, its value may be 70000 crores and it is known as deterioration in asset quality. The financial problems of Indian companies are now being reflected in the asset quality of banks that have lent them money.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has done a good job in terms of recoveries of loans; it has made stringent guidelines for banks so that they don’t slide their problems under the carpet. When bans hide their serious problems it rebounds badly after some time. The central bank (RBI) has tightened the rules for corporate debt recasts, asking banks to set aside more money for restructured loans as well as making promoters of companies personally liable for loan losses. This has followed to increase provisioning for restructured assets since November 2019.

In the past and even today, Indian insolvencies take longer to resolve than in any other major economy. Overall, India was No. 103 in the World Bank’s 2017 ranking of how nations handle insolvencies, just behind Nicaragua. The finance ministry has mentioned that it has taken steps for improving the insolvency resolution mechanism and said that as per the latest ‘Resolving Insolvency Index’, India’s ranking jumped 56 places to 52 in 2019 from 108 in 2018. India’s recovery rate out of insolvency proceedings has been low at 22 per cent vs developed economies’ average of 60 per cent and Russia’s 40 per cent. Only in Brazilian creditors typically recover less.

The causes: INTERNAL FACTORS:

1. Excess capacity creation: The banks overlook borrower’s excess capacity creation without addressing raw material availability or tying up with customers a few years back due to liberal lending practices and easy availability of equity fund due to encouraging FII flows was one of the key reasons why a lot of loans turned bad.
2. Wrong usage: Funds borrowed for particular purpose are not utilized for the same
3. Defective lending process: There are three principles that are followed by the commercial banks in lending process i.e. principle of safety, principle of liquidity, principles of profitability. Principle of safety means that the borrower is in position to pay back the loan. Therefore the banker should take utmost care in ensuring that the enterprise or business for which a loan is sought is a sound one and the borrower is competent of carrying it out successfully, he should be a person of integrity and good character.
4. Inappropriate technology: Due to improper technology and management information system, market driven decisions on real time basis cannot be taken. So all the branches of the banks should be upgraded with current scenario.
5. Improper SWOT analysis: The inappropriate strength, weakness, opportunity and threat analysis is another reason for increase in NPA’s. So the bank should examine the profitability, viability, long term acceptability of the project while financing.
6. Poor credit appraisal system: Due to poor credit appraisal the bank gives advances to those who are not able to repay it back. As a result the NPA’s of the bank increases. So the bank should maintain proper credit appraisal system.
7. Managerial deficiencies: The banker should always select the borrower very cautiously and should take tangible assets as security to safeguard its interests. The banker should follow the principle of diversification of risks which means that the banker should not grant advances to a few big firms only or to concentrate them in few industries or in few cities.
8. Absence of regular follow up: The irregularities in spot visit also increase the NPA’s, the absence of regular visit of bank officials to the customer point decreases the collection of interest and principal on the loan.
9. Incomplete and faulty documentation: There should thorough verification by the officials on the documents submitted by the borrowers.

EXTERNAL FACTORS:

1. Ineffective recovery tribunal: The government has a set of number of recovery tribunals which work for recovery of loans and advances, due to their carelessness and ineffectiveness in their work the bank suffers the consequence of non-recovery, thereby reducing their profitability and liquidity.
2. Wilful Defaulters: The Indian Public Sector Banks are worst hit by these defaults. It is a default in repayment obligation. Big examples are Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. Is one among many of those wilful defaulters; others include Spanco Ltd, Calyx chemicals & amp; Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Beta, Napthol, Winsome Diamonds & Jewellery Ltd., Rank Industries Ltd., XL Energy Ltd. etc.
3. Natural calamities: This is the measure factor, which is creating alarming increase in NPA’s of the PSBs. Basically our farmers depend on rainfall for cropping; due to irregularities of rainfall the farmers are unable to attain the production level and thus they are unable to repay the loans. Therefore, the banks have to make large amount of provisions in order to pay those loans
4. Industrial sickness: Inappropriate project handling, ineffective management, lack of adequate resources, lack of advanced technology, day to day change in government policies produce industrial sickness therefore the banks that finance those industries end up with a low recovery of their loans, by reducing their profit and liquidity.
5. Lack of demand: Entrepreneurs in India need to understand the demand and supply cycle clearly. They must predict their product demand and start production accordingly; otherwise ultimately the inventory piles up. Thus, making them unable to pay back the money they borrow to operate these activities. Therefore the banks record the non recovered part as NPA’s and has to make provision for it.

Conclusion: Indian banking system needs complete and thorough overhauling, new set of policies for working, functioning, along with RBI’S functions to make the banking system robust and secured.