Shadow banks remain in the shadow. Since the collapse of IL&FS and shakeup in nonbanking financial companies (NBFCs), bankers, analysts and large investors have been trying to get a grip of the industry size and the scale of the current problem. They have been waiting for a comprehensive report from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on NBFCs. But the central bank is yet to come out with any such report, which was expected this month. Amid this data void, the numbers cobbled by Investec Securities, a division of the UK-based Investec Bank PLC, highlight the growing clout of NBFCs in the Indian financial system. Citing the data from Switzerland based Financial Stability Board (FSB), Investec’s report shows that the size of Indian NBFC assets at $310 billion were 9% of the country’s total financial assets of $3,340 billion and 17% of the banking assets worth $310 billion in 2016. The proportion larger when compared with those in some of the developed and emerging economies in the world. For USA and China, NBFC assets identified as Economic Function 2 by FSB, were 4% and 1% of total financial assets, in that order. The report also shows that Indian NBFCs hold the largest share of 46.5% in the local mortgage assets in March 2017. While the non-bank institutions in the US underwrote 54% of the mortgage, the outstanding assets were only 7.9% since majority of the underwiritings were sold to the government-sponsored enterprises.
Growing NBFC clout may bring more pain to financial system
