Despite the global financial crisis, the consolidated balance sheet figure of the Indian Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) increased by 21.2 percent at end March 2009 as compared to 25 percent the preceding year.

A reserve bank of India report on trend and progress of Banking in India, 2008-09 indicated that while the balance sheet of public sector banks maintained almost the same growth rate, the growth rate in case of private sector and foreign banks had decelerated.

It said that the off balance sheet exposure of the scheduled commercial banks which was on an increase for some years, stood at 80 as on March 31st, 2009, registering a decline of 26.4 percent on a year-on-year basis.

The apex bank said, "This was partly due to the appropriate prudential regulation implemented by the Reserve Bank in case of OBS exposures."

RBI said that the growth rate in 2008-09 declined as compared to the previous year, leading to deceleration in growth rate of net profits. The central bank added that the Capital to Risk-Weighted Assets ratio improved to 13.2 percent for the FY 2008-09 from 13 percent, a year ago.

According to the report total bank non-performing assets (NPAs) in India last year remained same at 2.3%. The NPAs of public sector undertakings (PSU) banks actually declined while that of private and foreign banks increased a bit. The return on assets (ROAs) at 1% for India and the return on equity (ROE) for Indian banks actually increased to 13.3% in fiscal 2009 from 12.3% a year ago.