SBI under-reports bad loans by Rs 12k cr for FY 19

State Bank of India on Tuesday reported bad loan divergence of Rs 11,932 crore for the last financial year besides disclosing divergence of Rs 12,036 crore in provisioning for the financial year ending March 2019.

The bad loan divergence means banking regulator RBI found SBI has under-reported its NPA by Rs 11,932 crore for last fiscal. The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) reported by the bank stood at Rs 1.73 lakh crore as on March 31, 2019. However, gross NPAs as detected by RBI was at Rs 1.85 lakh crore for the period.

While the bank provided Rs 1.07 lakh crore against bad loans, the provisioning requirement as assessed by RBI stood at Rs 1.19 lakh crore, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

Similarly, the net NPA was Rs 77,827 crore as compared to disclosed figure of Rs 65,895 crore, reflecting divergence of Rs 11,932 crore, it said.

As a result, the bank's fourth-quarter net profit of Rs 838 crore stands adjusted to a net loss of Rs 6,986 crore. This is after taking the additional provisioning into account, and there would be a subsequent impact of Rs 3,143 crore on gross NPAs, Rs 687 crore on net NPAs and Rs 4,654 crore on provisioning against bad loans in the third quarter of the current financial year.

The divergences were part of the bank's Risk Assessment Report by RBI for the financial year 2018-19. Market regulator Sebi last month had directed all listed banks to disclose any divergence in bad loan provisioning within 24 hours of receiving RBI's risk assessment report.

Information on divergences is price-sensitive and needs to be disclosed quickly to shareholders, said Sebi.

The RBI currently mandates disclosure of provisioning if in the central bank's assessment, it exceeds 10% of the reported profits before provisioning.

Earlier Indian Bank, Union bank, Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank are among the banks who have already announced divergences on their balance sheets on account of divergence reporting of NPAs and provisioning.