India’s Leading BFSI and FinTech Companies 2021

15 in 2019. While in the US, credit growth remained stable, in countries like Australia, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, it contracted consistently during 2019. For 2020, bank credit growth showed divergence across regions owing to country-specific factors. In the wake of the pandemic, bank credit growth dipped across all the regions, only to post partial recovery in Q2 of 2020. Asset Quality Asset quality showed general improvement across major advanced economies during 2019. It was a mixed bag, however, for the emerging economies. Countries like Brazil, India and Turkey improved their asset quality while banks in Russia experienced a deterioration in the asset quality in 2018 and early 2019 on account of fragile economic conditions and sanctions. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 2016 2017 2018 2019 Non-performing loans to Total Gross Loans Brazil India China (Mainland) Russia Sou th Africa Indonesia Source: IMF, RBI Return on Assets Bank profitability measured by return on assets (RoA) reflected a decline during 2019 in the emerging market economies. India continued to have the lowest RoA among its peers, but it showed some improvement in 2019, recovering from its earlier loss-making streak. Chinese banks also recorded subdued profitability amid asset quality issues, ongoing deleveraging, decelerating loan growth and weak balance sheets especially of small and medium-sized banks. On the upside, banks in Indonesia continued to post sustained growth amid high interest margins and strong credit growth. Performance of Russian and Brazilian banks was also on the positive side. 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 2016 2017 2018 2019 Return on Assets Brazil India China (Mainland) Russia Sou th Africa Indonesia Source: IMF, RBI Dun & Bradstreet