Finance
Cleaning Up India’s Financial System Is Like Playing Whack-a-Mole
Even after billions in government aid, India’s banks have the highest percentage of stressed loans of all major economies.
Account holders line up at a troubled co-op branch bank.
Photographer: Satish Bate/Hindustan Times/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The government in India has pumped $37 billion into ailing banks in the past three years. Lenders have been forced into mergers, and the central bank has wrested more than a dozen companies from the control of tycoons who defaulted on their debt.
But cleaning up the financial system has been like playing whack-a-mole. India’s banks still sit on the biggest pile of bad loans, relative to total loans, among the major economies. They’re about 9% of debts.