Indian banks' non-performing assets (NPAs) have seen a bump-up in recent times, with private lenders witnessing a 10th successive rise in quarterly bad loans, an analysis by CARE Ratings showed.

Gross NPAs of a set of 36 banks increased to a peak of Rs 9.66 lakh crore in March 2018 from Rs 6.71 lakh crore in March 2017 and moderated subsequently to Rs 8.70 lakh crore in March 2019 before rising to Rs 8.97 lakh crore in June 2019 again, the credit rating agency noted in a research report.

"The differing trend that can be seen here is that the NPAs for private banks have been increasing continuously over the quarters whereas for the PSBs they rose up to March 2018 and then declined in the next 4 quarters before increasing again in June 2019," CARE Ratings said in the report.

The report said that the 17 of the 36 banks had an NPA ratio of above 10 percent in June 2019. Of them, 16 were PSBs (public sector banks) and only one was a private bank. Three PSBs had NPA ratio of less than 10 percent - SBI, Indian Bank and Canara Bank. Three private banks had NPAs of less than 2 percent, eight had between 2-5 percent while five between 5-10 percent.

Overall gross NPA ratio has tended to move downwards post-March 2018 from 11.8 percent to 9.6 percent in March 2019 before rising in June 2018. For PSBs, the level has been above 10 percent for the 10 quarter’s period. At 12.3 percent in June 2019 it is still higher than that in March 2017.

Meanwhile, private banks have been relatively more consistent in gross NPA ratio which has ranged between 3.8-4.2 percent. In the last three quarters it has been less than 4 percent, the report added.

Banks Gross NPA Ratio