State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, under reported ₹11,932 crore of bad loans in the financial year 2018-19, according to a Reserve Bank of India inspection report. This has pushed the bank into losses for the said financial year.
According to a filing with the exchanges, SBI had reported ₹1,72,750 crore of gross non-performing assets in FY19, while according to RBI’s risk assessment report (RAR), it was ₹1,84,682 crore.
The divergence, which is the gap between the regulator’s assessment of net NPA and that of the bank, was also ₹11,932 crore.
The divergence in provisions for bad loans was ₹12,036 crore.
The increase in provision requirement for bad loans resulted in SBI plunging into losses for the financial year 2018-19. After taking provisions into account, SBI posted a net loss of ₹6,968 crore in FY19, as compared to the ₹862 crore profit reported earlier. SBI said after subsequent slippage or upgradation during the current financial year, the remaining impact on the gross NPAs during the third quarter of the current fiscal was ₹3,143 crore and for net NPAs it was ₹687 crore. The remaining impact on provisioning during the third quarter would be ₹4,654 crore, it said.
Last month, markets regulator SEBI issued a circular mandating listed banks to disclose divergences and provisioning within 24 hours of receipt of the RBI’s final Risk Assessment Report (RAR). Earlier, banks used to disclose the information on divergence along with their annual financial statements.
