 "An employee counts rupee notes at a cash counter inside a bank in Agartala")
IDBI Bank Ltd has set an aggressive three-year target of doubling its business and sharply reducing bad assets, the lender said, a day after the government said it would consider ceding control of the state-run bank through a share sale.
The bank said it expects to double its business to Rs 10,00,000 crores ($147.2 billion) and cut its gross non-performing assets (NPAs) to less than 3% by financial year ending March 2019.
That compares to gross NPAs of 8.94% in the most recently concluded Oct-Dec quarter when the company posted a loss of 21.84 billion rupees ($321 million).
The bank said it expects to be a "near zero net NPA" lender by financial year 2019 by stepping up efforts to recover bad loans.
State-run lenders are bracing for a capital shortage to meet new global banking regulations and the finance ministry will inject $3.7 billion to recapitalize government-run banks this year alone, in a sector-wide bailout estimated to cost $26 billion over four years.
Officials say Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's announcement in his budget speech that the government would consider cutting its stake in IDBI Bank to below 50% is likely to be a test case of India looking at privatising state-run banks.
($1 = 67.9600 Indian rupees)
