Macroeconomic Factors Affecting the NPAs in the Indian Banking System : An Empirical Assessment

This study attempts to analyze the current problem that Indian banking system is facing — Non-Performing Assets (NPAs). It empirically tries to examine both the macroeconomic and microeconomic (bank-specific) factors responsible for the rising NPA levels in the Indian banking sector. Banks have been considered sector-wise, namely, public sector banks, private sector banks and foreign banks, so as to distinguish the performance of each category of banks. However, for empirical analysis, historical annual data for 45 scheduled commercial banks operating in the public and private sector (the total assets of these banks constitute about 94.7% of total advances of the banking sector as on end March 2013) between 2005 and 2013 have been analyzed using panel data model. The empirical results show that at the macroeconomic level, the economic slowdown significantly and adversely impacts the NPA levels of the banks, which is evident from large and statistically significant coefficients of the growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country. The other macroeconomic factors which explain the recent trends in the NPA levels are the trade balance with other countries, high government deficit and the level of inflation. In case of bank-specific factors, restructuring activities, operating efficiency and credit growth are found to control the NPA levels significantly. The sectorwise analysis of banks reveals that the microeconomic parameters have less impact on the NPA levels of the banks