Skip to main content

Govt to continue talks with RBI on easing non-performing asset norms

Govt to continue talks with RBI on easing non-performing asset norms
Officials said the Prime Minister's Office and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been apprised of the matter

A day after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor N S Vishwanathan ruled out easing new norms for non-performing asset (NPA) resolution, the government doubled down on its stance that a strict application of these norms could send too many cases to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and clog the insolvency pipeline. Business Standard has learnt from senior government sources that the finance ministry will initiate a fresh round of communication with the RBI once Governor Urjit Patel returns to India.
Patel, along with Deputy Governor Viral Acharya, is in Washington, DC for the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring meeting, which is slated to end on April 22.
Officials also said the Prime Minister’s Office and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been apprised of the matter. A source said after Principal Economic Advisor Sanjeev Sanyal wrote to the RBI on the drawbacks of the new NPA norms, officials in the departments of economic affairs and financial services of the finance ministry also communicated to the RBI, seeking a relaxation.
“What the government has asked for is a well-defined process to deal with an NPA for the 180 days which lead up to the NCLT. The joint lending forums have gone. But we have asked the RBI whether any alternative can be set up for banks to take care of the smaller cases, thus negating the need to approach the NLCT always,” the official said. “The one-day default norm is being seen as harsh, and may specifically be detrimental for small and medium businesses,” the person said.
On Wednesday, Vishwanathan raised concerns over the large number of borrowers failing on the one-day default norm, and asked lenders to take this as a warning indicator warranting action.
Amid rising bad loans, which have crossed 10 per cent of the amount lent, the Reserve Bank had on February 12 released a revised framework on bad loan resolution, under which banks will have to disclose default even if interest repayment is overdue by just one day and have a resolution plan in place in 180 days. If it fails to find a resolution within this stipulated time, the defaulting company will have to be referred to insolvency courts.
On April 10, Patel told parliamentarians the new NPA norms would not be eased.

Business Standard, New Delhi, 20th April 2018
---------------

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...