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ROLE OF STATE-OWNED FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN INDIA:
SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT “DO” OR “LEAD”?
Urjit R. Patel*
Infrastructure Development Finance Company Limited Mumbai, India
April 2004
World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Brookings Institution Conference on Role of State-Owned Financial Institutions
Washington, D.C., April 26-27, 2004
Abstract
The importance of a sound financial sector in efficient intermediation of resources is generally accepted. A case for government intervention in the sector might also be made in the initial stages of a country’s development, given systemic failures in achieving certain economic goals. The paper argues that, in the case of India, this role is now redundant; the public sector should no longer be directly intermediating resources. There remain, however, certain aspects of the financial sector (which have merit good characteristics) where the government might be required to catalyse developments; these are what may be termed its “market completion” role. These interventions should essentially be for establishing enabling mechanisms that facilitate financial transactions.
*Correspondence: Urjit R. Patel, IDFC, Ramon House, 2nd Floor, 169 Backbay Reclamation, Mumbai 400 020, India; e-mail: [email protected]. I would like to thank Saugata Bhattacharya for collaborating on work that forms the basis of this paper. Disclaimer: The opinions presented in the paper are those of the author and not necessarily of the institution to which he is affiliated.
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“The Agricultural Infrastructure and Credit Fund, the Small and Medium Enterprise Fund, and the Industrial Infrastructure Fund will be operational shortly. All the three funds will, without compromising the norms of financial prudence, provide credit at highly competitive rates, which is expected to be 2 percentage points below the Prime Lending Rate (PLR)”.
– Interim Budget, India, 2004-05.
1. INTRODUCTION
A deep and efficient financial sector is necessary for optimal allocation of
resources. Governments have been involved in the financial sectors – in intermediation,
if not directly owning intermediaries – of many countries, even currently developed
ones, during various stages of their growth. In many countries, Development Financial
Institutions (DFIs) have been major conduits for channeling funds to particular firms,
industries and sectors during their development. Many studies (more recently, Allen
and Gale [2001] and Levine [1997]) have identified the importance of DFIs in the
South Korean and Japanese process of industrialisation. In some developed countries,
such as Germany, especially in the post Second World War era, this (command) mode
of financial intermediation has been used in national reconstruction as well. In many
developing countries, there has traditionally been a strong presence of the government
in the sector, usually through a combination of either owning these entities or indirectly
by mandating credit allocation rules. This followed a line of thinking emanating from
the works of Gerschenkron [1962] and Lewis [1955] that advocated a “development”
role for state-owned intermediaries.
Arguably, compelling arguments have been made for this involvement in the
initial stages of a country’s development. It is in the financial sector that market failures
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are particularly likely to occur.1 In addition, the significant asymmetries of information
characterising the sector, as well as the commercial unviability of lending to most
pioneering or small scale projects, generate a bias in bank loan portfolios away from
areas deemed vulnerable but are identified as thrust areas for development. As a result,
governments had often established “development” oriented intermediaries to nurture
infant industries and have also occasionally resorted to bank expropriations and
nationalisations if the need was felt to advance social goals like expanding the reach of
banking; in other words, addressing “market failures”. Even in countries that did not
have a high level of direct government ownership of financial intermediaries, the
involvement of governments in intermediation has been significant.
Reflecting the erstwhile predominance of the public sector in most areas of
economic activity, the government involvement in the financial sector had been devised
to implicitly assume counter-party risks. This cover had been adequate in the past given
the relative simplicity of transactions then prevalent. As economic activity became
increasingly commercially oriented, however, the government dominated financial
systems of most developing countries became ill-equipped to tackle the changed profile
of risks arising from the increased complexity of transactions. Nor did there exist the
robust clearing systems needed to support new financial products, or the accounting
and hedging mechanisms to deal with the significant counter-party risks that now
permeated the system. The consequence was a large increase in both institution-specific
as well as systemic moral hazard, manifest in repeated bailouts and recapitalisations.
1 Events over the past half a decade have provided numerous examples of these failures spanning geographical areas as well as various types of economic systems.
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Worldwide experience suggests that in the case of public sector institutions, the
owner – the government – typically lacks both the incentive and the means to ensure an
adequate return on its investment (La Porta, et al. [2000]). Political decisions, as
opposed to rate of return calculations, are often important in determining resource
allocation. In many instances, as well as across a wide spectrum of countries, this
involvement has led to fragility of the financial sector, occasionally resulting in
macroeconomic turbulence as well. One thread of explanations for this stems from the
“political” theories advanced, for instance, by Kornai [1979], Shleifer and Vishny
[1994] and others. Directed lending to projects that might be socially desirable but not
privately profitable is not likely to be sustainable in the long run. These weaknesses go
beyond the normal crises that have characterised the financial sector and have been
explored in detail in Patel [1997b]. A “conflict of interest” arises between development
goals of the government directed credit flows and the absence of commercial discipline
that gradually percolates the lending process.
The issue of incentives is especially relevant in India’s financial reforms,
particularly given the current importance of government owned financial entities that
cover almost all segments. India is one of a number of countries whose intermediaries
have been used by the government to allocate and direct financial resources to both the
public and the private sector. Government ownership of banks in India is, barring
China, the highest among large economies.2 Beside the standard problems of the
financial sector that result from information asymmetry and “agency” issues, moral
2 Hawkins and Mihaljek [2001] outline the characteristics of financial systems that are dominated by government ownership of intermediaries.
4
hazard might be aggravated3 in countries like India with high government involvement
because both depositors and lenders count on explicit and implicit guarantees.4 The
high degree of government involvement gives rise to a belief of depositors and
investors that the system is insulated from systemic risk and crises by engendering a
sense of confidence, making deposit runs somehow unlikely, even when the system
becomes insolvent. While selective regulatory forbearance might be justified as a
measure designed to balance the likely panic following news of runs on troubled
institutions, a blanket guarantee by government makes forbearance difficult to calibrate
and has the effect of sharply increasing system-wide moral hazard. Depositors,
borrowers and lenders all know that the government is guarantor. Since, for all intents
and purposes, all deposits are covered by an umbrella of implicit government
guarantees, there is little incentive for “due diligence” by depositors, which further
erodes any semblance of market discipline for lenders in deploying funds, as witnessed
most recently in the case of cooperative banks in India. The regularity of “sector
restructuring packages” (for steel and textiles and proposed most recently for telecom),
on the other hand, diminishes incentives for borrowers for mitigating the credit risk
associated with their projects.
Just as importantly, India now has a banking sector whose indicators (in terms
of standard norms like profitability, spreads, etc.) are prima facie more or less
3 We distinguish the term “aggravated” from “enhanced”, considering the former as a parametric shift of the underlying variables as opposed to a functional dependence in the case of the latter. More explicitly, increasing moral hazard enhances the incentives of banks to accumulate riskier portfolios, whereas an aggravated moral hazard results in a failure to initiate corrective steps to mitigate the enhanced hazard, for example, increasing requirements of capital, proper risk weighting, project monitoring, etc. 4 In this regard, India’s decision not to provide deposit insurance, ex post, to non-bank financial intermediaries was commendable.
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comparable to international peer group standards. This sector is also complemented by
relatively well developed capital markets which are playing an increasingly important
role in the resource requirements of commercial entities.
The paper draws heavily on recent papers (Bhattacharya and Patel [2002],
Bhattacharya and Patel [2003b] and Patel and Bhattacharya [2003]). It argues that the
useful role of public sector financial institutions in resource intermediation in India is
now very limited. After a brief sketch of the status of the sector, Section 2 highlights
the infirmities and weaknesses of the system engendered by the high degree of
involvement of the government in the sector. Section 3 is a critical look at the areas
which are often claimed to be the residual (but legitimate) domain of intervention by
the government, and examines the merits of the arguments advanced. Section 4
concludes.
2. THE FINANCIAL SECTOR IN INDIA AND CURRENT INFIRMITIES
From independence to the end of the 1960s, India’s banking system consisted of
a mix of banks, some of which were government owned (the State Bank of India and its
associate banks), some private and a few foreign. The political class felt that private
banks, which concentrated mainly on high-income groups and whose lending was
security rather than purpose oriented, were not sufficiently encouraging widening of the
entrepreneurial base, thereby stifling economic growth. Hence, it was decided to
nationalise 20 large private banks in two phases, once in 1969 and again in 1980, with
the objectives of promoting broader economic goals, better regional balance of
economic activity, extending the geographic reach of banking services and the diffusion
of economic power. Significant financial deepening has taken place over the three
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decades since the seventies (see Table 1 below). The M3/GDP ratio has increased from
24% in 1970-71 to 70% at present, and the number of bank branches have increased
eight fold over the same period, with much of the expansion in rural and semi-urban
areas, which now account for 71% of total branches.
Table 1: Decadal indicators of financial deepening 1970-71 1980-81 1990-91 2000-01 2002-03 M3 / GDP 24% 39% 47% 63% 70% Bank branches / ‘000 population 0.02 0.05 0.07 0.07 0.07 Source: RBI Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India, various issues.
After a hiatus of two decades, private banks were allowed to be established in
1993, but their share in intermediation, albeit increasing, continues to be low. The
largest growth in savings since 1997-98 has been in bank deposits, which now account
for half of financial savings.
2.1 Public sector involvement in the Indian financial system
Banking intermediaries continue to dominate financial intermediation (see
Appendix 1 Table A1.1 and Patel [2000] for a detailed exposition). Much of this
segment is publicly owned and accounts for an overwhelming share of financial
transactions (see Table 2 below for a thumbnail view). Appendix 1 Figure A1.1 also
shows that the extent of government ownership of banks in India is quite high
compared to international levels. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), moreover, has a
majority ownership in the State Bank of India (SBI), the largest Public Sector Bank
(PSB).
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Table 2: Share of public sector institutions in specific segments of the financial sector Public sector (%) Private (%) Total (Rs. bn) Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) 75.6 24.4 16,989 Mutual Funds (MFs) 48.2 51.8 1,093 Life Insurance 99.9 -- 2,296 Source: RBI Report on Trend and Progress in Banking 2002-03; Annual Reports of SEBI (2002-03) and IRDA (2001-02). Banking and mutual fund data are at end-March 2003. Insurance data is end-March 2002. Definition of shares: SCBs: Total assets. Private banks include foreign banks. MFs: Total Net Assets of domestic schemes of MFs (public sector includes UTI). Insurance: Life insurance Policy Liabilities. Public sector insurance includes LIC and SBI Life.
The shortcomings of the banking system in India are now relatively well
known. There have also been efforts, predominantly through a regulation-centric
approach, to tackle these issues. There is also a move to transform the major DFIs5 into
entities approximating commercial banks. But there remains another large section of
intermediaries that has not attracted requisite attention: specifically, the large
government-sponsored Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs).6 A very
serious lacuna in the oversight framework is the inadequate attention that has been
devoted to the role of market discipline for SIFIs like Life Insurance Corporation of
India (LIC) and Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO). A particular cause
of concern is the opacity of the asset portfolios of LIC and EPFO, a shortcoming which
is especially serious in the case of the latter.
LIC, as of March 2003, had investible funds of Rs. 2,899 bn (which, to provide
perspective, was 11.9% of GDP in 2002-03)7. The book value of LIC’s “socially
oriented investments” – mainly comprising of government securities holdings and
social sector investments – at end-March 2003 amounted to Rs. 1,882 bn, i.e., 71% of a
5 In India, DFIs are a sub-group of intermediaries termed All India Financial Institutions (AIFIs). 6 Our classification of SIFIs is somewhat different from the government’s view, enunciated in the RBI’s Monetary and Credit Policy, April, 2003, which referred to “large” intermediaries, including banks like SBI and ICICI Bank.
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total portfolio value of Rs. 2,650 bn (10.9% of GDP)8. A staggering 87% of this
portfolio comprises of exposure to the public sector.
Compared to the LIC, the EPFO’s accounts are, simply, opaque. Cumulative
contributions to the three schemes of the EPFO, i.e., Employees’ Provident Fund
(EPF), Employee Pension Scheme (EPS) and Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance
(EDLI), up to the end-March 2002, amounted to Rs. 1,271 bn (5.1% of GDP). Total
cumulative investments of these three schemes were Rs. 1,390 bn (5.6% of GDP), with
the EPF being the largest scheme. The EPFO does not come under the purview of an
independent regulator, with oversight resting on three sources: Income Tax Act (1961),
EPF Act (1952) and Indian Trusts Act (1882).
More importantly, the involvement of the government in intermediation is much
wider than mere ownership numbers indicate; its ambit stretches across mobilisation of
resources, direction of credit, appointments of management, regulation of
intermediaries, providing “comfort and support” to depositors and investors, as well as
influencing lending practices of all intermediaries and the investment stimuli of private
corporations. These practices include treating banks as quasi-fiscal instruments, the
consequent pre-emption of resources through statutory requirements, directed lending,
administered interest rates applicable for selected savings instruments, encouraging
imprudent practices like cross-holding of capital between intermediaries, continual bail-
outs of troubled intermediaries, control and manipulation of smaller intermediaries like
7 The Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) Report on Development Banking in India, 2002-03, Appendix Tables 117-119. 8 Social sector investments include loans to State Electricity Boards, housing, municipalities, water and sewerage boards, state Road Transport Corporations, roadways and railways. These, however, account
9
cooperative banks, weak regulatory and enforcement institutions, unwarranted levels of
government controlled deposit insurance, etc (Buiter and Patel [1997]). A set of indices
to quantify the extent of this involvement was developed in Bhattacharya and Patel
[2002]9. Figure 1 below (here updated from the paper) shows that after having declined
almost secularly till 1995-96, the degree of involvement has risen – fairly sharply after
1997-98.
Figure 1: Index of Density of Government Involvement in the Financial Sector (IDGI-F) in India
One of the arguments previously advanced to justify government ownership of
many intermediaries was related to concerns about systemic stability. The argument
went that an implicit government net of “comfort and support” to both depositors and
lenders deterred the prospect of financial runs. Till 2001-02, the explicit component of
this support had translated into a cumulative infusion into banks of Rs. 225 bn.
The government has also engineered many other indirect forms of bailouts.
Financial interventions in the Unit Trust of India’s10 (UTI) US-64 scheme are
for about a fifth of the socially oriented investments portfolio, with the balance accounted by government and government guaranteed securities. 9 Appendix 2 provides a description of the Index construction methodology. 10 India’s largest mutual fund.
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
1990-91
1991-92
1992-93
1993-94
1994-95
1995-96
1996-97
1997-98
1998-99
1999-00
2000-01
2001-02
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examples. Following the recommendations of an Expert Committee constituted after an
earlier payments crisis in 1998, the government decided to exempt for three years the
US-64 from a 10% dividend tax (deducted at source) that other equity mutual funds
were required to pay. Data on dividend income distribution and the dividend tax for
US-64 for 1999-2000 indicate foregone tax revenue of around Rs. 2 bn. Under the
Special Unit Scheme of 1999, the Government of India (GoI) did a buyback of PSU
shares at book value, higher than the then prevailing market value, effectively
transferring Rs. 15 bn to investors. After the second US-64 payments crisis in 2001,
under a Repurchase Facility covering 40% of the assets of US-64, investors were
allowed to redeem up to 3000 units at an administratively determined price, with the
GoI making up the gap between this price and the NAV of a unit. Eight Public Sector
Banks “offered” liquidity support to UTI in the event of large-scale redemptions.
Recognising the unviability of this support and a high probability of an ultimate default
on these loans, however, these banks have sought comfort through government
guarantees to help in easy provisioning against the loans and avoiding violation of
norms of lending without collateral. Even more than the actual losses to the exchequer,
these implicit safety nets create an insidious expectation of government support to
investors, weakening their commercial judgment.
2.2 Weaknesses characterising the Indian financial system
Certain structural characteristics and institutional rigidities evident in India
further weaken mechanisms for prudent de-risking of portfolios. The absence of
effective bankruptcy procedures leading to a lack of exit opportunities for both
intermediaries and the firms that they lend to, force intermediaries to roll-over existing
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sub-standard debt or convert them into equity, thereby continually building up the
riskiness of their asset portfolio. The use of intermediaries by the government in
“diverting” funds, for purposes that are not entirely commercially motivated, reinforces
the decline in the quality of assets. A prominent reason is an attempt by government to
boost investment, both by direct spending and indirectly via credit enhancements, like
guarantees, partially to counter low private investment. In combination with the
frequently observed “tunnelled” structure of many corporations (Johnson, et al.
[2000]), which facilitates connected lending and diversion of funds between group
companies, institutional rigidities (especially weak foreclosure laws) and regulatory
forbearance (including inadequate disclosure requirements of investments and other
lending practices), the outcome is a disproportionate build up of the riskiness of
intermediaries’ asset portfolios.
2.2.1 Incentive distortions arising from public ownership of intermediaries
In the process, the incentive structures that underlie the functioning of
intermediaries are blunted and distorted to the extent that they over-ride the safety
systems that have nominally been put in place. The large fiscally-funded
recapitalisations of banks in the early and mid-nineties may be rationalised as being
designed to prevent a system-wide collapse at a time when the sector had been buffeted
by the onset of reforms and it had not had time to develop risk mitigation systems.
Moreover, the overall reforms were designed to enhance domestic and external
competition, as a result of which past loans to industry were bound to get adversely
affected, impacting these banks’ balance sheets. The nascent state of capital markets at
that time might also have been seen as a hindrance in accessing capital, especially
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capital without large attached risk premia. The impact of this support, though, has been
considerably reduced, if not eliminated, by the series of ongoing bailouts, with
seemingly little by way of (binding) reciprocating requirements imposed on
intermediaries to prevent repeats of these episodes. It needs to be recognised that the
only sustainable method of ensuring capital adequacy in the long run is through
improvement in earnings profile, not government recapitalisation or even mobilisation
of private capital from the market.
A singular aspect of financial sector reforms in India has been that, while the
“look and feel” of organisations associated with intermediation has altered, the focus of
the changes has revolved around the introduction of stricter sector regulatory standards.
Caprio [1996] argues that regulation-oriented reforms cannot deliver the desired
outcome unless banks are restructured simultaneously; this includes introduction of
measures that empower banks to work the new incentives into a viable and efficient
business model and encourage prudent risk-taking. These mechanisms are also meant to
inter alia mitigate the “legacy costs” that continue to burden intermediaries even after
restructuring. Some of these costs, in the Indian context, apart from the consequences
of public ownership discussed above, are well known: weak foreclosure systems and
legal recourse for recovering bad debts, ineffective exit procedures for both banks and
corporations, etc. In addition, during difficult times, fiscal stress is sought to be relieved
through regulatory forbearance; there are demands for (and occasionally actual
instances of) lax enforcement (or dilution) of income recognition and asset
classification norms. A multiplicity of “economic” regulators, most of them not wholly
13
independent, deters enforcement of directives (see Bhattacharya and Patel [2001] for an
analysis of the way regulators have looked at financial market failures).11
Other than structural changes in corporate resource raising patterns, commercial
lending is inhibited inter alia due to distortions in banks’ cost of borrowing and lending
structures arising from interest rate restrictions. Continuing floors on short-term
deposits and high administered rates on bank deposit-like small savings instruments
(National Savings Certificates, post office deposits, etc.) artificially raise the cost of
funds for intermediaries. Lending constraints relate to various PLR related guidelines
for Small Scale Industries (SSIs) and other priority sector lending. This constellation of
factors has made treasury operations an important activity in improving banks’
profitability.12 Over and above the regulatory oversight of the RBI, the role of
government audit and enforcement agencies – like the Comptroller and Auditor
General (CAG), Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI), etc. – in audits of decisions taken by loan officers at banks undermines “normal”
risk taking associated with lending (see Banerjee et al. [2004]).13
The outcome of this environment is “lazy banking”14; banks in India seem to
have curtailed their credit creation role. Outstanding assets of commercial banks in
government securities are, as of March 5, 2004, much higher (just over 46%) than the
11 For instance, cooperative banks have been lax in implementing RBI notifications on lending to brokers. 12 Declining interest rates increased trading profits (in securities) of PSBs in 2001-02 more than two and a half times that of the previous year and accounted for 28% of operating profits (RBI Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India, 2001-02, Table II.14). 13 Loan officers have complained about being harassed, if not penalised, for having taken on “good” credit risks, whereas risks not warranted by sound commercial practices have often been foisted on by the political owners of these institutions. 14 A term coined by one of the current Deputy Governors of the RBI.
14
mandated SLR (25%).15 As Figure 2 below shows, a large fraction of bank deposits are
being deployed for holding government securities. This ratio, as is evident, has been
increasing steadily over the last seven quarters and, more pertinently, has persisted over
the last two quarters despite a strong economic rebound and, presumably, a consequent
increase in demand for credit.
Figure 2: Cumulative (quarter-wise) SLR securities investment - deposit ratio of SCBs (in %)
Sources: RBI Handbook of Statistics, 2002-03 and Weekly Statistical Supplements Note: Q4 2003-04 figures are as of March 5, 2004.
Note that this phenomenon is actually rational behaviour by banks given the
incentive structure described above. In deciding on a trade-off between increasing
credit flows and investing in government securities, the economic, regulatory and fiscal
environment is stacked against the former. An unintended consequence of the
increasingly tighter prudential norms that banks will be forced to adhere has been a
15 It is also noteworthy that 51% of the outstanding stock of central government securities at end-March 2002 was held by just two public sector institutions: the State Bank of India and the Life Insurance Corporation of India (sourced from Government of India Receipts Budget, RBI Report on Trend and Progress and investment information on LIC’s website).
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
2001-02 2002-03 2003-04
15
further shift in the deployment of deposits to government securities and other
investments that carry a comparatively lower risk weight16.
3. RESIDUAL ROLES OF GOVERNMENT IN INTERMEDIATION IN A
MARKET ECONOMY: A CRITICAL LOOK
Given the scenario described in the previous section, primarily driven through
distorted incentives, of public sector involvement described above, there is a robust
case for the government to exit from actual intermediation. This section is a critical
look at the functions which are often claimed to be the residual (but legitimate) domain
of intervention by the government, and examines the merits of the arguments advanced.
We need to emphasise that even though the paper analyses the specific activities that
are claimed to be the residual arenas of government involvement in a commercial
environment, it in no way provides a blanket endorsement of these actions in India.
The paper adapts an institution-specific framework explored in Rodrik [2002] –
formulated in the context of general economic development – as a touchstone for this
analysis. Rodrik groups the shortcomings and required actions related to market driven
reforms into four components, viz., (i) market stabilisation; (ii) market regulation; (iii)
market creation; and (iv) market legitimisation. This paper relates to the last two
aspects, but primarily through the lens of a fifth component that we add and explore in
this paper, namely, “market completion”. Table 3 below provides a schematic layout as
an organising scaffold for drawing together the threads of various aspects of the role of
16 Banks were advised in April 2002 to build up an investment fluctuation reserve (IFR) of a minimum 5% of their investments in the categories “Held for Trading” and “Available for Sale” within 5 years. As at end-June 2003, total IFR amounted to only about Rs. 100 bn (i.e., 1.7% of investments under relevant categories). While 12 banks are yet to make any provisions for IFR, 20 have built IFR up to 1% but only 65 have IFR exceeding 1% (RBI Mid-term Credit and Monetary Policy, 2003). 17 PSBs have IFRs of 2% or more (RBI Report on Trend and Progress, 2002-03).
16
the government in creating new markets that are necessary for facilitating transactions
as well as deal with issues that are a corollary of a move towards commercial
orientation of economic activity.
17
Table 3: Matrix of institutional processes in the reform of the financial sector
Institutions’ role
Objective Mapping to the Indian (financial) context
Addressing specific shortcomings
Market stabilisation
Stable monetary and fiscal management. Profligate fiscal environment.
Pre-emption of resources by government.
Efficacy of central bank functions.
Market regulation
Mitigating the impact of scale economies and informational incompleteness.
Regulatory forbearance.
Public ownership of institutions.
Appropriate prudential regulation.
Imposition of market discipline.
Transparency and information disclosure.
Market creation Enabling property rights and contract enforcement.
Public ownership of institutions.
Enforcing creditor rights.
Effective dispute resolution mechanisms.
Market legitimisation
Social protection; conflict management; market access.
Profligate fiscal environment.
Regulatory forbearance.
Public ownership of institutions.
Mixing social and commercial objectives (e.g., rural branch requirements for banks).
Appropriate insurance for depositors.
Capital markets enforcement.
Effective redressal of investor grievances.
Market completion
“Spanning states of nature”. Shallow or non-existent markets.
Lack of institutions and products to mitigate specific (market-making) risks that hamper formation of markets.
Inadequate old-age income safety nets.
18
3.1 Facilitating transactions and deepening markets
Given the significant information asymmetries that normally characterise capital
markets and, consequently, the specific risks that individual intermediaries (or even
groups) might not be able to bear, there are often inefficiencies in market transactions or
the inability of institutions to catalyse certain specialised economic activities. Market
institutions that minimise transactions cost, often in the nature of a quasi-public good, may
not necessarily emerge as a rational collective outcome of the individual players involved.
These activities usually share characteristics of public merit goods. The government has an
important role in developing institutions that serve as platforms for correcting market
deficiencies and failures as well as facilitating transactions and increasing market
liquidity, as well as improving clearing and settlement systems.
Dealing with the commercial consequence of the new set of risks, however,
demands the presence of specialised institutions. Debt markets in developed countries now
serve both as a complement to intermediaries’ loans to corporations as well as for
innovating structured financial instruments. In India, on the other hand, the fragmented
nature of debt markets had entailed significant counter-party risk, thereby becoming a
barrier to market integration and further hindering the formation of benchmark yield
curves. This resulted in large and distorted spreads on rates of interest on debt instruments.
As a consequence, the market disciplining effect of capital markets on intermediaries’
loans, especially to corporations, has tended to be mitigated.
The RBI, recognising the need for a financial infrastructure for clearing and
settlement of government securities, forex, money and debt markets (thereby bringing in
efficiency in the transaction settlement process and insulate the financial system from
shocks emanating from operations related issues), initiated a move to establish the
19
Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL), with the SBI playing a lead role. CCIL was
incorporated in October 2001. CCIL takes over and mitigates counterparty risks by
“novation”17 and “multilateral netting”. The risk management system at CCIL includes a
Settlement Guarantee Fund (SGF) composed of collaterals contributed by the members,
liquidity support in the form of pre-arranged lines of credit from banks, and a procedure
for collecting initial and mark-to-market margins from the members to ensure that the risk
on account of members’ outstanding trade obligations remains covered by their respective
contributions to SGF.
The core activities of the Securities Trading Corporation of India (STCI) comprise
participation, underwriting, market making and trading in government securities. It was
sponsored by the RBI (jointly with PSBs and AIFIs18) with the main objective of fostering
the development of an active secondary market for Government securities and bonds
issued by public sector undertakings.
In the equity markets, an important component of the government’s reform
programme in the 1990s consisted of creating three new institutions – the National Stock
Exchange (NSE), National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) and National
Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) – to facilitate the three legs of trading, clearing and
settlement. The first of these has been the most successful, and was in fact the progenitor
of the other two. Promoted in 1993 by some AIFIs (at the behest of the government), as an
alternative to the incumbent Stock Exchange, Mumbai (BSE), the NSE has since become a
benchmark for operations characterised by innovation and transparency. The NSE has
17 Novation is the original contract between the two counterparties being replaced by a set of two contracts – between CCIL and each of the two counterparties, respectively. 18 These comprise the DFIs, Investment Institutions like LIC and UTI, other Specialised Financial Institutions and Refinance Institutions (NABARD and the National Housing Bank, NHB).
20
overtaken the BSE in terms of spot transactions and has spearheaded the introduction of
derivative instruments, where it now accounts for 95% of trades.
The NSCCL, a wholly owned subsidiary of NSE, was incorporated in August
1995. It was constituted with the objectives of providing counter-party risk guarantees and
to promote and maintain, short and consistent settlement cycles. NSCC has had a trouble-
free record of reliable settlement schedules since early 1996, having evolved a
sophisticated “risk containment” framework.
To promote dematerialisation of securities, the NSE, IDBI and UTI set up NSDL,
which commenced operations in November 1996, to gradually eradicate physical paper
trading and settlement of securities. This got rid of risks associated with fake and bad
paper and made transfer of securities automatic and instantaneous. Demat delivery today
constitutes 99.99% of total delivery-based settlements.
A point worth noting has been the inherent profitability of many of these
institutions. Volumes at the NSE, both in the spot and derivatives segments, have
increased significantly in recent times. The annual compound growth in turnover at NSE
over 1995-96 to 2002-03 was 73.1%19, and is likely to have significantly increased in the
current fiscal year. The government (indirectly, through the sponsoring financial
institutions) stands to increase its returns from the volumes evident in these markets (not
to mention the service taxes that directly accrue to it).
3.2 Catalysing niche economic activities
As the government begins to open up areas of economic activity that had hitherto
been the exclusive domain of government to the private sector, many processes and
institutions have to develop that can mitigate and allocate the attendant risks through
21
appropriate financial structures, innovative products, resource syndication and project
facilitation. Without these institutions, the probability of private sector operations not
succeeding increases, leading to the political risk of re-nationalisation of at least some of
these activities. In addition, individual initiatives depend upon a critical mass being
attained in certain “supporting” areas, which we analyse in the sub-sections below.
3.2.1 Exim financing
Although commercial banks in developed markets have the capability of financing
(and re-financing) most trade related transactions, there remains – even in developed
countries – a residual role for a state-sponsored Exim bank for underwriting sovereign-
related risks, as well as advancing matters that are strategic in nature, apart from the
traditional role in building export competitiveness. In developing countries, in addition,
there might not be commercial banks with sufficiently diversified portfolios of assets that
can adequately cover the forex risks that are necessarily an adjunct of trade financing.
The Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) was established in 1982, for the
purpose of financing, facilitating, and promoting foreign trade of India. It is the principal
intermediary for coordinating institutions engaged in financing foreign trade transactions,
accepting credit and country risks that private intermediaries are unable or unwilling to
accept. The Exim Bank provides export financing products that fulfill gaps in trade
financing, especially for small businesses, in the areas of export product development,
financing export marketing, besides information and advisory services20. As Indian
corporations increasingly invest in foreign countries, there is also a need for political risk
insurance, the mantle of which might also be assumed by this institution.
19 NSE Factbook 2002-03. 20 The Exim Bank’s role in export promotion, besides extending lines of credit, consists of educating exporters about market potential, banking facilities, payment formalities, etc., which has a bearing on the country risk they might face.
22
Exim Bank’s loan assets have risen from Rs. 20.3 bn in 1993-94 to Rs. 87.7 bn in
2002-03 (an increase of 340%), and its guarantee portfolio from Rs. 7.5 bn to Rs. 16.1 bn
(113%) over this period. India’s manufacturing exports, over this period, has increased
from Rs. 685 bn to about Rs. 2,290 bn (234%).
3.2.2 Infrastructure and project financing
Universally considered a pivot for economic growth, infrastructure has been one of
the two large segments that has traditionally been under the rubric of the state in India (the
other, as we have discussed, being the financial sector). The gradual recognition of the
inefficiencies inherent in public provision of utility services, as well as the inability of the
exchequer to cope with the large investments needed to upgrade, refurbish and build
assets, made the Indian government amenable to introducing private participation in the
sector (in the early 1990s). Bhattacharya and Patel [2003a] had previously detailed the
necessity of developing sound regulatory structures in emerging economies for
encouraging private investment in infrastructure. The unique requirements of project
finance necessary for financial closure of private infrastructure projects had been
recognised early on, but, of itself, this was soon found to be insufficient. After years of
effort, and initial failure in most sectors in India, the importance of sound policy and
regulatory frameworks to complement specialised financial products and markets was
understood.
As an outcome of this understanding, the Infrastructure Development Finance
Company (IDFC) was established to “lead private capital into commercially viable
infrastructure projects”. Apart from its responsibility in structuring finances for
infrastructure to lower the cost of capital, IDFC was tasked with rationalising the existing
policy regimes in sectors as diverse as electricity, telecom, roads, ports, water &
23
sanitation, etc. Its policy advocacy initiatives in the telecom and civil aviation sectors are
good examples of the success in “developing sectors”, in contrast (and addition) to merely
financing individual projects. IDFC has also made an impact in bringing in funds into
projects through innovative financial products like “take-out” financing and the use of
various risk-guarantee instruments, as well as financing structures such as the “annuity”
method for road projects. These initiatives have had the effect of orchestrating a
significant quantum of private investment into infrastructure projects.
3.3 Channels and instruments for social objectives
The original rationale for nationalisation of banks in India, as well as the
establishment of DFIs, was the failure of existing private sector intermediaries to extend
the reach of banking to rural and remote areas, as well as perceived inadequacies in
channelling credit to what were then deemed as critical areas of industrialisation. Although
understandable, and even recommended, in a specific context, the justification for a
continuation of these policies has been largely eroded. For some of these objectives, India
already has specialised intermediaries – the National Bank for Rural Development
(NABARD), Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), State Finance
Corporations (SFCs), etc. These institutions have quite obviously failed to live up to their
mandates, given the periodic exhortations by the government and supplementary
mechanisms that are proposed to be instituted to advance their stated objectives.21 We look
at individual components of these objectives and argue that using bank intermediaries to
achieve them is sub-optimal.
21 There is a proposal in the Interim Budget 2004-05 for a “Fund” for small scale enterprises, but the objective and disbursement mechanisms of this fund are not clear.
24
3.3.1 Intermediating rural financial resources
Rural banking is rife with inefficiencies. Commercial banks, especially PSBs, have
an inordinately large presence in rural and semi-urban areas. While only 33% of their
deposits are sourced from (and 21% of credit is disbursed in) these areas, a full 71% of
their branches are located there (see Appendix 1 Table A1.2). RBI licensing conditions for
new private sector banks stipulate that, after a moratorium period of three years, one out of
four new branches has to be in rural areas, thereby adding significantly to operating costs
in an intensely competitive environment.
This is despite the prevalence of a large network of post offices that is the
predominant channel for small savings, as well as specialised Regional Rural Banks
(RRBs), cooperatives and other intermediaries working through NABARD. India had
around 155,000 post offices at end-March 2002, including about 139,000 in rural areas.22
The Post Office Savings Bank, operated as an agency for the Ministry of Finance, besides
being a conduit for National Small Savings (NSS) schemes, also offer money order and
limited life insurance schemes. The ambit of these outlets, many already operating in
partnership with commercial banks and insurance companies, can be further expanded in
rural areas to address credit delivery shortcomings (the problematic aspect of rural
intermediation). Although, to the best of our knowledge, an exploration of the potential of
a re-organised post office network in India as the main channel of delivery of rural credit
has not been done, an instructive report is that of the Performance and Innovation Unit of
the British government, whose post office organisational structure is similar to India’s
(PIU [2000]).
Rural banking needs might be “narrower” in nature and alternative credit delivery
mechanisms – which might be better suited and more cost effective – may be considered.
25
The other side of the coin is the reported shortcomings of credit delivery through
institutions like NABARD, which is validated through the casual empiricism of a periodic
refrain of the government to disburse funds to the agricultural sector at administratively
mandated rates of interest.23 Not only are lending decisions of individual banks distorted
(through the implicit cross-subsidies), financial sector reforms are systemically
undermined through these administrative directives. The success of operations of certain
Self Help Groups (SHGs) and micro credit institutions (SEWA being a prime example)
has also demonstrated the viability and higher sustainability of these alternative channels.
The use of minimum subsidy bidding to achieve some of the government’s social
objectives might be more cost-effective.
3.3.2 Lending to “priority sectors”
As seen above, the dilution of the credit creation role of banks have raised
concerns about under-lending. This worry is especially high for agriculture and small scale
industries. According to RBI guidelines, banks have to provide 40% of net bank credit to
priority sectors, which include agriculture, small industries, retail trade and the self-
employed. Within this overall target, 18% of the net bank credit has to be to the
agriculture sector and another 10% to the weaker sections. Commercial banks have been
consistently unable to attain these targets, and the expedient of channeling the shortfalls to
the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (under NABARD’s administrative ambit) has
led to concerns about its relatively non-transparent procedures of disbursement and the
potential of future Non Performing Assets (NPAs).
One of the arguments for mandating lending to the priority sectors at interest rates
lower than market rates is an administrative mitigation of the higher risk premiums for the
22 India Post Annual Report 2002-03.
26
(supposedly) inherently risky nature of this lending. An outcome of this risk is the level of
NPAs. While credit appraisals for small firms are definitely more difficult, the argument
of potentially high NPAs in priority sector advances may need to be nuanced (even if just
a little) in light of the numbers on the sector-wise origins of NPAs of PSBs, as of end-
March 2003. While the share of priority sector NPAs in the total is about 47%24 for PSBs,
their total loans outstanding to the priority sector (as a percentage of total loans) at end-
March 2003 was about 43%25. At the same time, the high NPAs of DFIs remain a pointer
to the perils of administrative mandates in advancing social goals as well as reliance on
state government-guaranteed lending.26
3.3.3 Social security nets
The provident fund system is the most important component of the social security
net, but covers a meager 11 million persons, all of them in the organised sector. An
important component of the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme of the EPFO
(discussed earlier) is the administratively determined markup for the returns provided on
deposits into the EPF, justified on the basis of providing an adequate livelihood for
pensioners and others on limited fixed incomes. It is estimated that the average real annual
compound rate of return over the period 1986-2000 was 2.7% (Asher [2003]).
One of the worries, apart from concerns about investment efficiency, is the
sustainability of this method. The average markup between the returns provided by the
EPF and 10-year Government of India securities since 1995-96 has been 120 basis
23 For instance, the recent directive to banks in December 2003 to disburse farm credit at 2% below their respective Prime Lending Rates (PLRs). 24 RBI Statistical Tables Relating to Banks in India, 2002-03, Table 7.2. 25 RBI Report on Trend and Progress in Banking, 2002-03, para. 3.93. This includes transfers to RIDF, SIDBI, etc. 26 Net NPAs of DFIs were 18.8% of advances in 2002-03 (RBI Report op. cit).
27
points27. The various tax exemptions that are granted to these deposits – throughout the
life of these deposits – make the effective rate of return even higher. A back-of-the-
envelope calculation in Patel [1997a] indicated that the EPS was actuarially insolvent and
the EPFO’s reluctance to make public its actuarial calculations does little to assuage this
conclusion. Other than issues of sustainability, there remain concerns of these and other
National Small Savings (NSS) schemes regarding the distortive effects on the yield curve
(term structure of interest rates). As Table A1.1 shows, small savings outstanding
accounted for over 15% of GDP in 2002-03, dwarfing all other intermediaries but banks.
3.4 Deposit insurance to enhance systemic stability
Other than instituting a sound regulatory mechanism and facilitating efficient and
seamless transactions, a major aspect of the government’s role in imparting stability to the
financial system is the constitution of an appropriate safety net for depositors. The current
system has a built-in bias which leans towards using taxpayer funds to finance bank losses,
thus undermining even limited market discipline and encouraging regulatory forbearance.
India has a relatively liberal deposit insurance structure, compared to international
norms (Demirguc-Kunt and Kane [2001]). Depositors in India do not have to bear co-
insurance on the insured deposit amount and the ceiling insured amount (Rs. 100,000) is
five times the per capita GDP, high by international standards. This encourages some
depositors to become less concerned about the financial health of their banks and for
banks to take on additional (and commercially non-viable) risks.
The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) came into
existence in 1978 as a statutory body through an amalgamation of the erstwhile separate
Deposit Insurance Corporation (DIC) and Credit Guarantee Corporation (CGC). DICGC
27 The rate of return on the EPF scheme has been set at 12% per annum from 1989-90 onwards, till July 2000
28
extended its guarantee support to credit granted to small scale industries from 1981, and
from 1989, the guarantee cover was extended to priority sector advances. However, from
1995, housing loans have been excluded from the purview of guarantee cover. As of 2001-
02, about 74% of the total (accessible, i.e., excluding inter-bank and government) deposits
of commercial banks was insured28. Banks are required to bear the insurance premium of
Re 0.05 per Rs. 100 per annum (depositors are not charged for insurance protection).
The issues raised by an overly generous deposit insurance structure have been
recognised by the government. Some of the major recommendations of the 1999 Working
Group constituted by the RBI to examine the issue of deposit insurance are withdrawing
the function of credit guarantee on loans from DICGC and instituting a risk-based pricing
of the deposit insurance premium instead of the present flat rate system. A new law,
superceding the existing one, is supposedly required to be passed in order to implement
the recommendations.
4. CONCLUSION
Despite the institution of market reforms in India since the early nineties,
government “interests” in the financial sector have not diminished commensurate to its
withdrawal from most other aspects of economic activity. The continuing presence is too
large to be justified solely on considerations of containing systemic risk.
There might have been justifiable reasons for government ownership of
intermediaries in the early years of India’s development, but these have now been
rendered redundant, and possibly even damaging. India now has a relatively well
developed intermediation network, with intermediaries that are becoming increasingly
commercially oriented. The raison d’etre of the Development Finance Institutions (DFIs)
from when they have been progressively reduced to the current 9%.
29
is also now obsolete, with the continuing development of project finance skills of banks
and the maturing of capital markets.
A combination of directing resources of intermediaries in fulfilling a quasi-fiscal
role for government, extra-commercial accountability structures and regulatory
forbearance (arising out of an implicit overarching guarantee umbrella) has mitigated the
essential corrective effect of market discipline in both lending and deposit decisions.
Coupled with persisting government involvement in intermediation and an implicit
support scaffold, this has resulted in an aggravation of the problems of moral hazard that
is a normal feature of financial systems.
A cycling analogy is the most apt to describe the outcome of these deficiencies.
The set of actions that increasingly aggravate moral hazard, through visible and invisible
props to keep the edifice from falling, is like riding a bicycle without brakes down a hill –
attempting to stop or intensifying pedalling will lead inexorably to a wreck. The prudent
escape is to look for a soft spot to crash to minimise damage and then get the brakes
repaired.
India is unlikely to suffer a full-blown systemic crisis, witnessed in different
contexts in various countries. Its financial sector inefficiencies are likely to simply
simmer, with occasional payments crises, like the one at the dominant mutual fund over
the last five years. However, the cumulative inefficiencies and grim fiscal outlook, with
the concomitant regulatory forbearance that public involvement inevitably entails, are
certain to retard India’s transition to a high growth trajectory. The persistent unease with
the state of the system, it can be speculated, arises from the recognition that the perceived
28 DICGC Annual Report 2001-02.
30
safety of intermediaries is due more to the “social contract” between the government and
depositors than underlying robustness in the health of the sector.
The system of intermediation will not improve appreciably in the absence of any
serious steps towards changing incentives blunted by public sector involvement (of which
ownership is an important aspect). To sharpen these incentives, outright privatisation may
not be sufficient, but it is necessary. It is the first step to a true relinquishing of
management control, which remains far beyond the scope envisaged in the Banking
Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Bill tabled in Parliament in 2002
(and still languishing), designed to reduce government holding in nationalised banks to
33%, but allowing them to retain their “public sector character” by maintaining effective
control over their boards and restricting the voting right of non-government nominees.
Attempts to shed commercial risks of investors, borrowers and depositors (through
implicit bailout and other means of accommodating fragility) will almost certainly lead to
economic ones during slowdowns, creating a new kind of instability.
Old habits, unfortunately, die hard. There has re-emerged in official thinking an
ambiguity about the perceived role of financial institutions as a tool of financial policy. On
the one hand, there is an extensive restructuring of the DFIs underway, through mergers
and redefinitions of their statutory status. Yet, on the other, various aspects of financial
sector reforms are either being rolled back (directives for lending to target groups) or are
not being addressed (artificially high rates of interest for small savings schemes). Various
decisions that strengthen the “DFI model” – including directed disbursements at lower
than market interest rates, use of public sector intermediaries for interventions in capital
markets, etc. – have recently been taken. More than anything else, the cardinal mistake is
31
to confuse outcomes with mechanisms and processes. Both, after a brief period of
increasing emphasis on commercial viability, are again becoming target driven.
Given the increasing integration of financial markets, there is also a need to shift
reform focus from individual intermediaries to a system level. An important component in
this shift is enhancing intermediaries’ ability to de-risk their asset portfolios. Undoubtedly,
the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security
Interest (SARFAESI) Act of 2002 is a crucial step forward in addressing bad loans, but, on
its own, it is limited in scope and even this is beset by various legal challenges.
Establishing asset reconstruction companies, even under private management, will serve
only to tackle the overhang of existing bad assets – they per se do little to correct the
distortions in incentives that are intrinsic to large parts of the system.
There, however, remain some aspects of intermediation that are in the nature of
public goods. One is the establishment of specific “platforms” for facilitating transactions.
Another is to catalyse certain economic activities that are in the nature of testing waters or
else are pioneering financial services. The government has constituted diverse bodies to
fulfill these roles; it is worth noting that the most successful among these have been
institutions that have had no direct intermediation functions. The state might have other
legitimate social objectives like extending the reach of intermediation in rural and remote
areas and providing social security nets; these, though, would be better achieved through
the use of existing networks like post offices rather than commercial banks.
32
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34
APPENDIX 1 Table A1.1: Comparative profile of financial intermediaries and markets in India
(Amounts in Rupees billion, and numbers in parentheses are percentage of GDP) 1990-91 1998-99 2002-03 Gross Domestic Savings 1,301 3,932 5,500 (24.3) (22.3) (24.0) Bank deposits outstanding 2,078 7,140 13,043 (38.2) (40.5) (50.1) Small Savings deposits, PPFs, outstanding etc 1,071 3,333 3,810 (20.0) (19.1) (15.4) Mutual Funds (Assets under management) 253 858 1,093 (4.7) (4.9) (4.2) Public / Regulated NBFC deposits 174* 204 178 (2.4) (1.2) (0.7) Total borrowings by DFIs (outstanding) -- 2108 901
(12.0) (3.5) Annual Stock market turnover (BSE & NSE) 360& 15,241 9,321
(5.6) (79.0) (35.8) Stock market capitalisation (BSE & NSE) 845& 18,732 11,093
(15.8) (97.1) (42.6)
Turnover of Government securities (excluding repos) through SGL (monthly average)
-- 310 2,287
(1.8) (9.0) Annual turnover as % of stock market turnover -- 24% 276% Volume of corporate debt traded at NSE (excluding Commercial Paper)
-- 9 58
Legends: *: denotes figures at end-March 1993. &: Pertains only to BSE. --: Not comparable.
Table A1.2: Current trends in banking in urban and non-urban areas (as on March 31, 2003) No. of
bank branches
Deposits (Rs. bn)
Credit (Rs. bn)
C-D Ratio (%)
Scheduled Commercial Banks Urban centres (including metros) 19,379 29% 8,619 67% 5,998 79% 70%
Metro centres 8,664 13% 5,719 45% 4,745 62% 83% Top 100 centres 15,066 23% 7,603 61% 5,758 75% 74%
Non Urban centres 38% Semi urban centres 14,813 22% 2,405 19% 847 11% 35% Rural centres 32,244 49% 1,763 14% 748 10% 42%
All India 66,436 12,787 7,592 59% Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) 14,462
(21%) 498
(4%) 221
(3%) 44%
Source: Culled from RBI Banking Statistics – Quarterly Handout, March 2003. Note: Percentages for RRBs in parentheses represent shares relative to those for all India Scheduled Commercial Banks.
35
Figure A1.1: Country comparison of government ownership of banks
8679
6852
4431 30 25
18 151 0 0 0
1213
23
32 4962
21
5582
7893
8395
50
2 8 9 167 7
49
201
9 617
5
50
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
ChinaIndia
RussiaBrazil
IndonesiaThailand
ArgentinaMexico
Germany
SwitzerlandJapan
Australia USA
Singapore
Government banks Domestic private banks Foreign Banks Source: BCG presentation, CII Banking Summit, 2003.
36
APPENDIX 2
METHODOLOGY OF CONSTRUCTION OF THE INDEX OF DENSITY OF GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT IN THE FINANCIAL SECTOR (IDGI-F).
This appendix is an enumeration of the constituent groupings of the Index of
Density of Government Involvement in the Financial Sector (IDGI-F) and an associated
weighting system. The weights are uniform, being simply +1 or –1 depending on the
appropriate definition of the respective series vis-à-vis the definition of impact on
involvement.
I. Constituents of IDGI-F
A. Share of public sector banks (PSBs) and financial institutions (FIs) in total financial
intermediation.
1. Share in resource mobilisation (as a sum of the following):
a. Net demand and time liabilities of public sector banks (as % of
financial savings).
b. Resources mobilised by DFIs through bond issues (as % of financial
savings).
c. Premia of LIC / Amounts mobilised by UTI (as % of financial savings).
B. Lending practices and use of funds.
2. Investments in government securities by banks and financial institutions (as %
of their incremental lendable resources).
3. Excess deposits deployed by PSBs in priority sectors (as % of Net Bank Credit,
in excess of minimum prescribed norms).
C. Trends in the government’s pre-emption of financial resources.
4. Share of public investment in overall investment (e.g., 7.7 percent out of 26.8
percent in 1995-96 and 6.9 percent out of 23.7 percent in 2001-02).
37
5. Public sector saving - investment gap (as % of GDP).
6. Public sector fiscal / resource gap (a proxy for Public Sector Borrowing
Requirement (PSBR), as % of GDP).
7. Outstanding explicit liabilities of the (central and state) governments (as % of
GDP).
8. Outstanding contingent liabilities (guarantees and other off-balance sheet
items) of the (central and state) governments (as % of GDP).
II. Methodology for construction of the IDGI-F
The IDGI-F is a simple weighted average of the rates of change of “synthetic”
(sub-index) constituent series. These synthetic sub-index series are constructed using the
(observed) rates of change of the constituent variables (detailed above), with the values of
variables of the individual series each being normalised to 100 in 1990-91.
