United Bank of India and Dhanlaxmi Bank top the list of public and private sector lenders with maximum incidence of bad loans.

Among the foreign banks, Firstrand Bank had the ‘worst’ gross Non-performing Assets (NPAs) of 25.93 per cent at the end of September 2014, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

“Among the PSU banks, United Bank of India is the worst performer with 10.78 per cent gross NPA ratio,” he said, adding that Vijaya Bank with bad loans of 2.85 per cent of total advances was the best performer.

Dhanlaxmi Bank, Sinha said, was the worst performer among private banks with NPA of 7.27 per cent. The best performer was Yes Bank with NPA of 0.36 per cent at the end of September.

NPAs of PSU banks as a whole stood at 5.29 per cent, for private banks at 2.05 per cent and for foreign banks at 3.90 per cent at the end of September.

In a reply to a separate question, Sinha said the main reason for increase in NPAs of banks are sluggishness in domestic growth, slowdown in global economic recovery and continued uncertainty in global markets.

The sub-sectors which contribute significantly to the level of stressed advances are infrastructure, iron and steel, textiles, mining and aviation services, he added.

comment COMMENT NOW