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Purpose: Worldwide economies have been shattered by the alarming increase in Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) in Banking Sector. In India, the rise in NPA levels gives a clear insight into the health of industry and state. This study aims to determine how NPAs in India impact the profitability of eight banks chosen from the public and private sectors; specifically: Punjab National Bank (PNB), Bank of India (BOI), UCO Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB), HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, and Yes Bank; during the period 2009/2010 to 2017/2018.

Design/methodology/approach: The study utilised IBM SPSS version 20 application to carry out our statistical analysis of measures of central location (mean and median), measures of dispersion (standard deviation), to carry out the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test to check the normality of data, the Mann–Whitney U test (for two groups) for median comparison between private and public sector banks and the Kruskal–Wallis test (for more than two groups) for median comparison for more than two banks. p ≤0.01 and p ≤0.05 were the two-tailed significance level used for determining the significance of all statistical tests.

Findings: Trend analysis and statistical tests show that the trend in public sector banks to have NPAs is higher compared to private sector banks, and losses arising from NPA impact the banks’ profitability.

Practical implications: It is apparent that NPAs are a large threat to banks in India as it reflects the state of the Indian economy. The growth of the economic cycle is predominantly dependent on the smooth and profitable functioning of private and public sector banks. This current study focusses on and compares the impact of NPAs on the profitability of public and private sector banks. NPAs have grown exponentially more in the case of public sector banks than private sector banks, which has affected the former banks’ financial health and performance. Increases in the level of NPAs adversely affect the working style and long-term stability of public and private sector banks in the economy.

Social Implications: NPAs have a negative influence on the profitability of the banks as well as on the economic growth of the country too. However, it is recommended that management in the banking sector, particularly the public banks, should use various preventive and recovery strategies to reduce the risk of failure and to keep track of NPAs to stay safe.

Originality/value: This study aims to determine how NPAs in India impact the profitability of eight banks chosen from the public and private sectors; specifically: PNB, BOI, UCO Bank, PSB, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, and Yes Bank; during the period 2009/2010 to 2017/2018.

The learning outcomes of this study are to gain an understanding of the banking regulations and their impact on banking performance, to understand the intermediation role of banks by channelizing depositors’ savings and providing loans to borrowers, to explain an impact of a recent regulatory change in the Indian banking that directly impacts their financial performance, to critically evaluate the different financial ratios to analyze the performance of a bank and to build a DuPont analysis framework for banks.

The case serves as a primer on banking regulations in India and provides insights into banking performance. Banking regulations play an important role in maintaining financial stability, specifically in emerging economies like India. The protagonist of the case is Salil Kumar who presented his internship project to the review committee of Stock Investment Company on April 16, 2021. However, he had to rework and present his final project within seven days on the basis of the feedback received from the committee. Kumar faced the dilemma of bringing together a comparative study across two banks, namely, Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI Bank) and State Bank of India (SBI) and building a DuPont framework covering the different aspects of banking performance. The case exemplifies the intricate regulatory landscape in India within which banks operate and highlights the recent alterations introduced by the Reserve Bank of India. For instance, the framework for dealing with domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) was introduced in 2014 and subsequently adopted in August 2015. The D-SIB framework provides inherent guarantee to large banks such as ICICI Bank and SBI. This ensures government backup in the event of any failure, thereby securing financial stability. The case study is suitable for banking and financial accounting courses taught in postgraduate management programs. Once the case is studied, the students are expected to understand the basics of banking, regulations, impact of regulations on banking performance and financial measures.

The case provides valuable insights into the intricate dynamics of the banking industry, offering a critical perspective for analysis. A well-structured teaching note would serve as a valuable tool for instructors, allowing them to facilitate engaging classroom discussions and effectively guide students toward achieving the desired teaching objectives.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of cost, revenue and profit efficiency on bank profitability in an emerging economy such as India over the period 1997 to 2017. Additionally, this study examines the effect of efficiency on profitability across different ownership groups for a panel of 70 Indian commercial banks.

In the first stage, using stochastic frontier analysis, we estimate the efficiency scores of cost, revenue and profit over the examined period. In the second stage, this study uses the two-step system generalized-method of moments dynamic panel approach to investigate the impact of several efficiency measures on bank profitability.

Results estimated through and system generalized-method of moments indicate that a higher level of cost, revenue and efficiency significantly improves India's bank profitability. Regarding ownership groups, this study finds that the public sector banks are most cost-efficient compared to private and foreign banks. Other bank-specific, macroeconomic and institutional variables have played a significant role in determining bank profitability.

The findings of the study extend some important policy implications. In light of the rapid decline in bank profitability, banks should focus on increasing the efficiency of their operations. Improvement in profit, cost and revenue efficiency can ameliorate bank performance significantly. Profit efficiency that takes into account both cost and revenue efficiency should be maintained reasonably to prevent the declining pattern of bank profitability that the industry has witnessed over the years.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this study is a fresh piece of research that fulfils an urgent need of investigating the dynamics between bank efficiency and bank profitability in India. In an emerging economy like India, where the banking sector has witnessed substantial structural transformations over the past two decades, such study demands an immediate empirical investigation.

Sustainable development (SD) is widely acknowledged as the center around which all development efforts should revolve. Banking is a crucial component of SD, and the adoption of sustainable banking practices by various banking institutions is a powerful catalyst for its achievement. This paper aims to investigate the level of adoption of environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators in India and the extent to which financial institutions use these strategies. In addition, the banks have been classified according to their sustainable banking performance and showing a relationship between ESG and sustainability.

An ESG framework has been developed for the Indian banking system that focuses on the behavior of banks. The evaluation of literature helps to identify the gaps in particular frameworks for analyzing sustainable banking practices in developing nations because of the variation in economic criteria between developed and developing countries. An attempt to construct a common framework for measuring the banking sector’s sustainable efforts has been done in the past. Specifically in India, where the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability are of equal importance to governance indicators, these studies fall short of providing relevant indicators. Multiple financial reports, nonfinancial reports, corporate social responsibility reports and business responsibility reports of this sector were analyzed using content analysis techniques against ESG indicators for sustainability attainment.

The result of this study shows that both the sectors are disclosing their environmental indicators more as compared to other dimensions. While the analysis says that private companies are going better than public companies in terms of disclosing their ESG indicators. As compared to the international banking sector, adoption of Global Reporting Initiatives standards, United Nations Environment Programme Financial Initiatives (UNEP FI), Green Credit Policy and Equator Principles (EP) is near to the ground in India. IDFC bank is the only entity that started implementing EP practices and Yes bank also is doing a wonderful implementation of the green policies and is the signatory to UNEP FI.

The current state of sustainable banking in India is reflected in the implementation of the proposed framework. To better integrate sustainability problems into banking, this study provides helpful information for banks and other stakeholders. In addition, this study corrects the lack of research in the Indian context on sustainable banking.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge by far, this is one of the prime studies to inspect the degree of ESG disclosure by the Indian banking sector in their sustainability report.

The study aims to evaluate the financial distress position of selected sample banks in India. The top 10 banks with the highest levels of gross non-performing assets (NPA) under both public and private sector ownerships have been chosen for the study. Application of the Altman Z-score model has been used to compare both ownership banks’ financial distress for five years from 2017 to 2021. Based on the study’s findings, it was found that private sector banks demonstrated better financial stability than their public sector counterparts. Specifically, the average Z-score of the selected sample banks was higher than the safe zone threshold of 2.9 during the study period.

The academic literature has examined why bank runs happen based on the work of 2022 Nobel Prize-winning economists Diamond and Dybvig. They have found the source of banking/financial crisis in terms of mismatch between liabilities (deposits being short term and savers wanting to short-term access to their money) and assets (long term and illiquid). The Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) crisis intensified when it came under Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This situation provides the opportunity to study whether the elements embodied in the theoretical models like Diamond and Dybvig hold true for LVB crisis. This study aims to examine the reasons for the demise of LVB in India using DuPont financial model, peer group analysis and time series structural break in crucial financial parameters.

The study examines the reason for insolvency of LVB using financial ratios, financial models (DuPont), financial distress model (Z-score) and asset-liability management. The study also adopts univariate structural break models using quarterly financial data covering the key financial measures used in the RBI’s PCA framework.

LVB crisis is like Diamond–Dybvig model, in the sense, savers requiring short-term access to their money (liquidity for their deposits) on the information of high non-performing assets, which further deteriorates the illiquid nature of loan portfolio (assets) of banks. The study finds its profit margin (net interest margin and non-interest margin) and managerial efficiency had started deteriorating since 2018. The study finds that LVB’s main weakness lies in its limited credit appraisal ability, its monitoring and weak internal controls. Lending to sensitive sectors (like real estate, capital markets and commodities) and exposure to large business groups also contributed to its weakness. The study also finds huge, elevated asset-liability mismatch, especially in the short-term maturity buckets. Using univariate econometric time series model, the study also confirms financial weakness being evident much earlier than the time when resolution was undertaken by the RBI through PCA.

The study has implications for analysing and monitoring financial distress of banks. The study also has implications for devising banking regulation and supervision.

The study brings in a perspective of the banking regulations using the application of PCA framework on a listed private sector bank. The authors combine an accounting ratio model and combine risk measures that could identify the incipient risks in a bank. The authors believe this will help in refinement of banking regulations and better monitoring mechanisms.

The present study aims to investigate the effect of environmental reporting on the financial performance of banks in India.

The study is based on the secondary data. The sample includes the banks listed in the NSE Nifty Bank Index from 2016–2017 to 2020–2021. The environmental reporting data was obtained through the content analysis technique. The financial data was collected from the CMIE Prowess database. Panel regression analysis was used to analyse the data.

The findings indicate a negative significant influence of environmental reporting on the ROA and ROE of banks. On the other hand, environmental reporting does not significantly influence the EPS of banking institutions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to contribute to the scarce literature on the influence of environmental reporting on financial performance, pertinently in the context of a developing nation's banking sector.

The case study will help to learn about the importance of pre-sanction precautionary measures before lending to self-help groups (SHGs), to learn about the potential lapses and errors while sanctioning SHG finance and to learn about the importance of bank’s guidelines and compliance before sanctioning loans.

This case study details the tenure of Seema in a rural branch of Safe Bank of India located in Haryana which she joined as a manager in the year 2016. She overachieved the target given by the district collector office, and going by the tide, she kept her reliance on the references provided by non-government organization (NGO) without complying the bank’s instructions. She committed errors while sanctioning the loans, which led towards the upsurge of non-performing assets of the branch. Later on, after investigation it was discovered that she did not follow fundamental bank’s instructions. In wake of those lapses and errors, how she could have avoided those lapses and secure the public money? What were the most important documents while granting agriculture finance and what due diligence she should have taken? How did she treat calls from the government departments? Was she right in trusting the suggestions of the NGO?

This case study caters to students of various streams, namely, management, business administration and law, and can be targeted at both undergraduate and postgraduate students. It could be suitable for several types of courses and students. Furthermore, this case study can also be targeted for various training programmes for bank employees and employees of various lending institutions engaged in agriculture finance and credit linkage programmes.

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CSS 1: Accounting and finance.

Sustainable strategic management (SSM) is an integrated concept that entails sustainability in the approaches and processes of strategic management. Banking being a rapidly growing industry in service sector, it is reasonably important to study the SSM and its integrated performance. This paper aims to study the sustainable-strategic (SS) factors of Indian banks that affects their endurance and prioritizes the banks based on their sustainable and strategic performance.

This study appertains a sustainable balanced scorecard (SBSC) framework to determine the SS factors and an integrated multicriteria decision making (MCDM) method to weigh the criteria and prioritize the banks' performance.

The criterion weightage signifies sustainability, followed by financial and internal business perspective to be a crucial dimension for the performance of banks. The banks, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank Ltd and Canara Bank are ranked top-most on the SS performance.

The insights from the study on SS factors and banks' performance can be further used by policy-makers and researchers to understand the sustainability assessing factors and focus on making policies and further studies to enhance the performance in this regard.

Banking is one of the potentially growing industry in service sector. It being a major part of economy's sustainable growth, it is essential to assess the SS factors that enhance their sustainable performance. There is dearth of study in this purview, for developing countries like India. Thus, this study critically analyses the strategic sustainability of Indian banking industry to ascertain the SS factors and prioritize the performance of banks based on criterion weightage and bank's SS operations.