From bad to worse

The NPA crisis needs market-based solutions

In its Financial Stability Report (FSR) released on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) insisted that India’s financial system remained stable overall. But the prognosis for the bad loan crisis should cause policymakers to worry. The FSR predicts that, if the prevailing macroeconomic environment stays the same in the coming year, the ratio of gross non-performing assets (NPAs) to total loans and advances will rise to 12.2 per cent in March 2019, an increase of 60 basis points over the figure for the end of the financial year 2017-18. This would be the highest since 2000, the last time