Indian banks’ international claims rose by 11 per cent to $56.3 billion in the 2012 calendar year. About a fifth of the loans were to entities based in the US, according to the latest RBI data.
As per the Bank for International Settlements, “international claims” are financial claims on residents of countries other than the reporting country. In other words, these are the dues owed to the bank by non-residents of the home country.
The claims comprise a mix of loans, debt securities and equities, including equity participation in subsidiaries.
The other major countries with liabilities toward Indian banks were the UK, which accounted for 12.4 per cent of the total claims, Singapore and the UAE (8.3 per cent each), Germany (4.2 per cent) and the Netherlands (3.3 per cent).
International claims had declined by 8.6 per cent to $50.7 billion in 2011. And in the first half of 2012, they reduced marginally to $50.5 billion. But there was a pickup in credit disbursal in the second half of 2012.
This was primarily driven by increased loans to entities based in the UK and UAE. Indian banks’ claims on these countries rose by $0.6 billion each during 2012. In contrast, their exposure to US entities rose by just $50 million.