Moody's Inside India analyzes India's 2016 budget, securitization in promoting financial inclusion, public-sector banks credit profiles

Moody's Investors Service says that India's 2016-2017 budget is moderately credit positive for most sectors, but credit negative for public sector banks because of the insufficient allocation of capital for the segment.

"The budget is credit negative for public sector banks because the government has stuck to its capital infusion roadmap announced in 2015, budgeting INR250 billion in injections," says Srikanth Vadlamani, a Moody's Vice President and Senior Credit Officer.

"By contrast, we believe that unless the banks receive trillion for the four fiscal years ending 31 March 2016 to 31 March 2019, their credit profiles will worsen," adds Vadlamani.

Moody's points out that public sector banks are unlikely to gain access to the capital markets for equity capital in the near term, given their low valuations. The banks will therefore have to turn to the government for capital injections at least over the next 18 months.

As for the Indian sovereign (Baa3 positive), the budget indicates a continued commitment to gradual fiscal consolidation by bringing down fiscal deficits to 3% over the next two years. However, the proposals do not contain significant measures to address structural fiscal challenges.

Moody's analysis is contained in its latest edition of Inside India, a quarterly publication that looks at major credit trends in India.

On the issue of securitization, Moody's says that the development of securitization markets in India and China will help the two countries achieve their common goal of building inclusive financial systems that will ultimately bring affordable credit to the underprivileged segments of their societies.

Moody's explains that in both countries, non-bank finance companies (NBFCs) are key providers of credit to individuals and small businesses that would otherwise have limited access to bank loans or would incur high interest costs for such loans. While there are various funding avenues open to NBFCs in India and China, securitization has proven to be reliable and competitively priced, and is therefore an important source of the funds the NBFCs use for lending.