Looking at the canary: Do SBI Cards' bad loans have a deeper meaning?

If Covid-19 causes a fresh havoc to government-bank finances, it could be back to the old story of large-scale losses prompting further capital infusion by the government, writes T N Ninan

It could be the canary in the coalmine: SBI Cards and Payments has reported a trebling of its bad loan percentage in just one quarter. If it had not been for the moratorium order preventing the full recognition of delinquency, the bad loan ratio would have jumped more than five-fold, from 1.4 per cent to 7.5 per cent. Credit card debt as a percentage of the total is tiny, but it is expensive credit and default is usually a sign that personal finances are in trouble. So does this development have a larger significance?
 
In the last couple of