Assets: Foreign, private banks lead

Public sector banks have been unable to match asset growth of foreign banks and new private sector banks during 2005-06, due to forced liquidation of government securities to meet high credit demand.

The new private sector banks have witnessed the highest growth in assets at 43.2 per cent during 2005-06 followed by foreign banks, which have grown at a rate of 31.2 per cent, RBI's report on 'Trends and Progress of Banking in India, 2005-06' said.

Public sector banks on the other hand, have reported only a 13.6 per cent growth while old private sector banks have posted the lowest growth in assets for the 2005-06 period at 12.2 per cent.

As a result, the relative significance of PSBs declined considerably with their share in total assets of scheduled commercial banks declining to 72.3 per cent at the end of last fiscal from 75.3 per cent at the end of March 2005, the report said. The share of new private sector banks rose to 15.1 per cent from 12.5 per cent in the same period.

This mainly mirrors the trend in deposits, which have risen in the case of new private sector banks but dipped in the case of PSBs, between the period 2004-05 and 2005-06, the report shows.