Investing Productively: The Banking Sector

Banks collect savings by households via deposits and channel them to the most productive investors in the form of credit. What happens to bank credit has a determining impact on growth, especially in the formal economy. A key feature of Indian banks has been repeated episodes of accumulation of non-performing assets followed by their recapitalization by the government using public money. These episodes have been concentrated in public sector banks (PSBs), which continue to account for two-thirds of banking assets. This chapter offers a detailed analysis of these episodes and argues that it is time for the government to give serious thought to privatization of PSBs. PSBs are subject to regulation by both the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), but RBI has limited powers over them. On average, private banks outdo PSBs along nearly all dimensions in terms of efficiency.