The Banking Industry, NPAs and budget
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 13th Feb. 2016
The banking sector woes seem to be taking a toll. However what it seems is that these are mostly taking a toll of the capital markets, the banks themselves as well as the government budget, which is seen getting committed towards recapitalizing banks. How many assets of the big defaulters are on block is anyone's guess. Even where banks seem to be taking advantage to acquire a majority stake which is basically mid-level corporates, their auction to a new management is hardly being considered.
This implies control being vested with the existing management with the banks playing a tight supervisor in theory, since the banks or bankers may not be experts in running the company/industry. So idea seems to be to needle the existing executive management to turnaround and then the banks may exit, hardly the kind reforms that would be considered tough by the defaulters, though their political preference may be for no needling. Their private wealth is in any case intact, beyond the reach of banks to settle the defaulted loans. Also these borrowers know that the bank executives keep changing, and they would have ample opportunities to strike favourable deals with a suitable person in times to come since the bank executives have a very good tendency to forget written-off assets.
The mechanism which led to build up of these assets also seems to be intact. The banks still do not have a technology assessment policy for evaluating the viability of new projects in place. We therefore are likely to witness, a chunk of new projects which have already been discarded in more advanced economies, to be imported into the country on the back of their current viability, rather than future projections, mostly by industrialists which are adept in striking such rapport. This while the loans to technologically competitive sectors and ideas is still not available, though we continue to hear a lot of noise. One key indicator is the discussions are still about value of investments and large projects under make in India rather the absolute number of entrepreneurs, their woes especially about the lack of finance.
Also the ease of doing business seems to be more about the policy/procedure change, rather than the number of new people empowered; this is even as the political leadership claims to be more about results or outcome. Another aspect is project being brought up for government led consumption like in defence railways, while products development by local Indian entrepreneur taking on global rivals is still not a big story excepting by a politically inclined FMCG brand.While we do hear concern for farmers/rural economy in terms of advice to cola companies to mix juices with cola, what may have done the trick is allowing corporates to make juices (of fruits and vegetables) available to their employees and claim it up to say half of CSR budget as per tax calculation. This would promptly be picked up by many companies which may be only doing lip service towards CSR, as employees seeking benefit may become more conscious and most employed class is anyways health conscious.
A Free Juice by company would have many takers and push by consumption of the rural India's produce and would have helped in build-up of rural wages. While allocating expense to rural India we again see project awards for say rural toilets going to urban developers instead. A government keen on sending money to uplift rural economy may have many hard options to do so, however we continue to see a raft of intent and inspirational lectures, which I guess some of the analysts have already indicated and is being lapped up by the opposition though some of their actions in legislature may be equally opportunistic rather than principled. Guess it's time for another budget tight rope walk.
By: Amit Bhushan Date: 13th Feb. 2016
The banking sector woes seem to be taking a toll. However what it seems is that these are mostly taking a toll of the capital markets, the banks themselves as well as the government budget, which is seen getting committed towards recapitalizing banks. How many assets of the big defaulters are on block is anyone's guess. Even where banks seem to be taking advantage to acquire a majority stake which is basically mid-level corporates, their auction to a new management is hardly being considered.
This implies control being vested with the existing management with the banks playing a tight supervisor in theory, since the banks or bankers may not be experts in running the company/industry. So idea seems to be to needle the existing executive management to turnaround and then the banks may exit, hardly the kind reforms that would be considered tough by the defaulters, though their political preference may be for no needling. Their private wealth is in any case intact, beyond the reach of banks to settle the defaulted loans. Also these borrowers know that the bank executives keep changing, and they would have ample opportunities to strike favourable deals with a suitable person in times to come since the bank executives have a very good tendency to forget written-off assets.
The mechanism which led to build up of these assets also seems to be intact. The banks still do not have a technology assessment policy for evaluating the viability of new projects in place. We therefore are likely to witness, a chunk of new projects which have already been discarded in more advanced economies, to be imported into the country on the back of their current viability, rather than future projections, mostly by industrialists which are adept in striking such rapport. This while the loans to technologically competitive sectors and ideas is still not available, though we continue to hear a lot of noise. One key indicator is the discussions are still about value of investments and large projects under make in India rather the absolute number of entrepreneurs, their woes especially about the lack of finance.
Also the ease of doing business seems to be more about the policy/procedure change, rather than the number of new people empowered; this is even as the political leadership claims to be more about results or outcome. Another aspect is project being brought up for government led consumption like in defence railways, while products development by local Indian entrepreneur taking on global rivals is still not a big story excepting by a politically inclined FMCG brand.While we do hear concern for farmers/rural economy in terms of advice to cola companies to mix juices with cola, what may have done the trick is allowing corporates to make juices (of fruits and vegetables) available to their employees and claim it up to say half of CSR budget as per tax calculation. This would promptly be picked up by many companies which may be only doing lip service towards CSR, as employees seeking benefit may become more conscious and most employed class is anyways health conscious.
A Free Juice by company would have many takers and push by consumption of the rural India's produce and would have helped in build-up of rural wages. While allocating expense to rural India we again see project awards for say rural toilets going to urban developers instead. A government keen on sending money to uplift rural economy may have many hard options to do so, however we continue to see a raft of intent and inspirational lectures, which I guess some of the analysts have already indicated and is being lapped up by the opposition though some of their actions in legislature may be equally opportunistic rather than principled. Guess it's time for another budget tight rope walk.