Union Bank of India has identified eight stressed accounts worth Rs 3,000 crore to be sold in the current financial year to the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL).

The lender has already sold three soured loan accounts worth Rs 900 crore in FY23 to the national bad bank at a recovery rate of 33%.

“We have sort of identified as many as 42 troubled accounts with an outstanding of Rs 10,000 crore to be sold to the NARCL. Of these, we hope to sell at least eight of them to the bad bank this fiscal,” Union Bank of India managing director and CEO A Manimekhalai told reporters.

Union Bank of India was one of the first lenders to sell its non-performing loans to the NARCL.

Manimekhalai said the bank had recovered Rs 20,000 crore from written-offs/upgrades or one-time settlements, but this year it will be around a quarter of that only as the overall quantum of bad assets has fallen drastically.

Cash recovery, which stood at Rs 5,500 crore in FY23, is expected to fall to Rs 4,500 crore this year.

As of 30 June, the bank's gross bad loan ratio has declined by 288 basis points to 7.34% (Rs 60,104 crore) and net non-performing assets (NPAs)  by 173 basis points to 1.58% (Rs 12,138 crore). The plan is to bring it further down to under 6% by March 2024, Manimekhalai said.