Banks wrote off bad loans worth over Rs 2.09 lakh crore (around US $ 25.50 billion) during the year ended March 2023, taking the total loan write-off by the banking sector to Rs 10.57 lakh crore (around $ 129 billion) in the last five years, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in a Right to Information (RTI) reply.
This huge loan write-off aided banks to bring down gross non-performing assets (GNPA) – or loans defaulted by borrowers — to a 10-year low of 3.9 per cent of advances in March 2023. Gross NPAs of banks had fallen from Rs 10.21 lakh crore in FY2018 to Rs 5.55 lakh crore by March 2023, mainly on the back of loan write-offs by banks.
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