Finance ministry asks public sector banks to share bond portfolio data

About 60 per cent of banks' investment book is in the HTM portfolio, analysts at Macquarie Research wrote

The Union finance ministry has asked public sector banks (PSBs) to furnish details of their bond portfolios ahead of their meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, amid the turmoil in global banks.

As an exercise to determine the resilience of banks against interest-rate risks, the ministry has specifically requested details on holdings under the held-to-maturity (HTM) and available-for-sale (AFS) portfolios, bankers said.

While the HTM portfolio protects banks from potential losses on bond holdings, the government wants to ascertain how banks will respond in the case of large bond sales from that book, sources said.

Sitharaman will hold a meeting with