Capital Adequacy Ratio — a Panacea for Indian Banks during COVID-19 Pandemic

A stable financial system acts as a catalyst for the economic growth and development of a country. The healthy banking sector is the core of a sustainable economy as banks act as intermediaries between depositors and lenders of money. In the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial sector witnessed significant transitions in terms of digital transformation. In India, the banking sector has remained resilient throughout the pandemic due to government and regulators’ policy efforts and the maintenance of capital adequacy requirements. Banks have maintained higher capital buffers, better liquidity requirements, and lower leverage, cushions against pandemic shock. In the present paper, the researcher provides a conceptual elucidation of Basel norms, analyzes the component-wise Capital to Risk-Weighted Asset Ratio (CRAR) of Indian Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) and examines the CRAR position of SCBs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also evaluated the distribution of SCBs by CRAR and examined the capital ratios of public, private, and foreign sector banks from 2016 to 2022. The ANOVA analysis output revealed a significant difference in the CRAR of public, private, and foreign banks. The study concludes that adequate CAR levels help banks mitigate the risks that arise during pandemic crises and aid them in conducting their banking operations effortlessly. Further, it concludes that public sector banks (PSBs) still lag behind their counterparts in maintaining adequate CRAR, and hence, they need to reduce the accumulation of risk-weighted assets (RWA).