Under pressure to do more to cut a $48.83 billion (Rs 3.1 lakh crore)
mountain of bad debt, India's state-owned banks are reversing years of
lax recovery efforts, naming and shaming smaller borrowers and even
using big TV screens at shopping malls to advertise seized assets for
sale.
India's bad debt pile, dominated by corporate loans, is at its highest
in a decade, swollen by an economic slowdown, loose lending and, in many
cases, banks' own failure to do enough to chase down rogue debtors.
Now, bank executives say pressure - from a government needing to
accelerate economic recovery and from a central bank that wants company
owners to take more responsibility - has left little choice but to get
tougher and faster.
Tactics include targeting smaller borrowers with aggressive 'name and
shame' campaigns, with placards and groups of bank employees protesting
outside offices, for example, and putting pressure on investors or
executives at larger firms.
PK Malhotra, a deputy managing director at the State Bank of India, the
country's largest bank, said his team received extra training, including
in psychology, and was systematically chasing up payments, as others in
the bank accelerated sales of seized assets.
"The focus (is) on getting court cases expedited. Less on the paperwork and more on the fieldwork," said Malhotra.
Executives say it's too early to measure overall success, but there have been some wins for India's bruised banks.
Suzlon Energy this year sold its German unit, Senvion, for 1 billion
euros ($1.1 billion) in cash - less than what it paid to buy the asset
in a deal completed in 2011. It crystallised a huge loss after banks
piled pressure on the loss-making wind-turbine maker to cut its debt.
More than two dozen lenders led by SBI are looking for an investor in
Electrosteel Steels Ltd, whose near-$1.4 billion bank loan is strained.
Rather than 'evergreening' the loan - a process of regular review and
renew - lenders are getting involved in the buyer talks, an individual
with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
EARLY WARNINGS
Gross bad loans at Indian banks rose to Rs 3.1 lakh crore ($48.83
billion) as of end-March, or 4.6 per cent of total loans, according to
central bank data. Including loans that are stressed but not yet
classified as bad, total troubled loans made up 11 per cent of total
lending.
Banks say they are now moving faster to bring that down, stepping in at
the first sign of trouble, sending out more officers to chase borrowers
and putting more people on the job through specialised branches. Some
are trying to speed up the sale of seized assets by advertising them on
large screens at shopping malls.
"These days people are getting on to the job the moment you have an
early warning signal that something may happen in a company and you have
thousands of crores at stake," said a senior banker at a big state-run
bank. India uses crore to denote a unit of 10 million.
SBI has set up branches focussed solely on recovering loans, and, to
speed up cumbersome paperwork, encourages managers to snap pictures of
themselves on seized assets - proof of the change of ownership. It plans
to set up a web portal to showcase all the seized assets available for
auction.
"Companies can sometimes fall in love with their assets, but bankers can't afford to do that," said SBI's Malhotra.
Union Bank of India Chairman Arun Tiwari said his state-run lender has
changed its system to put three separate general managers in charge of
recovering different classes of loans - large, middle and small.
