State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) has topped the Rs 1.70 lakh crore loan write-off table for the year ended March 2024, posting a 10.5% rise to Rs 18,317 crore from Rs 16,578 crore a year ago.

Among the top 10 banks in terms of the highest amount of loans written off in FY24, six reported an increase during the year. 

Canara Bank stood next in the ladder which saw its loan write-off amount increase to Rs 11,827 crore for FY24, up 164.5% from Rs 4,472 crore in the year-ago period.

HDFC Bank was next in line among the lenders which saw its loan write-off amount increase for the year, as per data provided by the Finance Ministry in the Lok Sabha. The private lender posted a 2.4% increase to Rs 11,030 crore in FY24 from Rs 10,769 crore in FY23.

State-run Bank of India reported a 13.8% increase to Rs 9,897 crore in FY24 from Rs 8,694 crore in 2022-23.

Indian Bank was up next at Rs 8,734 crore with a 9.8% year-on-year rise from Rs 7,952 crore, followed by private lender Axis Bank at Rs 8,346 crore, up 33.6% from Rs 6,248 crore in FY23.

Among the banks which bucked the trend and actually registered a fall, Union Bank of India, State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda and Central Bank of India figured in the list. 

Union Bank of India reported a 4.8% decrease in the loan write-off amount, which stood at Rs 18,264 crore for the year ended March 2024 from Rs 19,175 crore in the earlier year.

SBI’s write-off amount was down 32.8% to Rs 16,161 crore in FY24, from Rs 24,061 crore in FY23. 

Bank of Baroda saw a 41.6% drop to Rs 10,518 crore from Rs 17,998 crore while Central Bank of India’s loan write-off amount for FY24 was Rs 10,001 crore, a year-on-year fall of 2.5% from Rs 10,258 crore.

PNB, Union Bank of India, SBI, Canara Bank, HDFC Bank, Bank of Baroda, Central Bank of India, Bank of India, Indian Bank and Axis Bank are the top 10 banks with the highest amount of loan write-offs, in that hierarchical order.

The loan write-offs of 77 scheduled commercial banks reduced by 18.2% to Rs 1.70 lakh crore in the financial year 2023-24 compared to Rs 2.08 lakh crore a year ago. The loans written off by these banks were at Rs 1.75 lakh crore in FY22.

Over one-fifth of the banks reported a rise in the amount of the loans written off in the year ended March 2024.

“Banks write-off non-performing assets (NPAs), including inter-alia, those in respect of which full provisioning has been made on completion of four years, as per as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines and plocy approved by banks’ boards. Such write-off does not result in waiver of liabilities of borrowers and therefore, write-off does not benefit the borrower. The borrowers continue to be liable for repayment and banks continue to pursue recovery actions initiated in these accounts, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

For the last five financial years beginning 2019-20, the total amount of loan write-offs was Rs 9.90 lakh crore. The amount of loan write-offs by scheduled commercial banks was highest at Rs 2.34 lakh crore during 2019-20, which came down to Rs 2.03 lakh crore in the following year and to Rs 1.75 lakh crore in 2021-22. This again rose to Rs 2.08 lakh crore in 2022-23, before taking a dip in the following year.