SBI wrote off Rs 20k-cr bad loans in FY17

New Delhi : The country’s largest lender, the State Bank of India (SBI), wrote off bad loans worth Rs 20,339 crore in financial year 2016-17, the highest among all the public-sector banks, which logged a collective write-off of Rs 81,683 crore for the fiscal.

The data pertains to the period when the associate banks of the SBI were not merged with it. Public sector banks’ (PSBs) write-off stood at Rs 27,231 crore in fiscal 2012-13, government data showed. The figure has jumped nearly three-fold in five years. In 2013-14, state-owned banks wrote off bad loans worth Rs 34,409 crore; Rs 49,018 crore in 2014-15; Rs 57,585 crore in 2015-16 and hitting Rs 81,683 in the fiscal ended 31 March 2017.

Punjab National Bank had a write-off of Rs 9,205 crore in 2016-17, followed by the Bank of India (Rs 7,346 crore), Canara Bank (Rs 5,545 crore) and the Bank of Baroda (Rs 4,348 crore). PSBs have written off loans worth Rs 53,625 crore in the six months to September.