India’s bank non-performing loans rise to $ 150 b

New Delhi (Reuters): Bad loans held by India’s banks rose to Rs. 10.36 trillion ($ 150.21 billion) at the end of March, the Government said on Tuesday, with state-backed lenders accounting for more than 86% of the total non-performing loans.

Twenty-one banks majority owned by the Indian government had gross non-performing loans of Rs. 8.96 trillion, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal told parliament, citing Central Bank data for global operations of the lenders.

In a separate response to a question from a lawmaker, junior finance minister Shiv Pratap Shukla said the gross non-performing loan ratio of the state lenders had reached 14.6% in the 2017/18 financial year.

At the end of December last year, the banking sector’s total non-performing loans was almost 9 trillion rupees, according to previously released government data.