India's toxic loans are larger than the GDP of 112 countries
Stressed or non-performing loans in India are now at $195bn, which is larger than the GDP of 112 countries listed on the World Bank's database, and it appears that India's bad loan problem is going to get much worse than banks have been willing to acknowledge; heaping pressure on the lenders' profits and further tightening the screws on distressed debt. Investors and analysts have, for some time now, suspected Indian lenders, particularly the state-run banks, of not disclosing the true extent of their bad loans so as to avoid having to raise provisions. However, details released for the first time last month by India's no. 1 and no. 3 private sector lenders - ICICI Bank and Axis Bank respectively - highlighted the depth of the problem. Moody's now says that "the ability of state banks to support economic growth or to provide loans will ultimately depend on how the government will support them in terms of capital," with Abhishek Bhattacharya, a director from India Ratings and Research, adding "it could get worse before it gets better is the sense we have."

India’s burden of bad loans is truly gigantic.

An analyst from India Ratings and Research, a credit ratings agency and a unit of Fitch Ratings, told Reuters that stressed loans or non-performing assets in India are worth Rs13 lakh crore ($195 billion). A loan becomes non-performing or bad when the borrower stops making any principal or interest payments.

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Quartz compared the size of India’s toxic loans with the GDP of all the countries listed on the World Bank’s database (data is for 2014, calculated at current prices).

Here’s what we found: India’s bad loan burden is bigger than the GDP of 112 countries. But for the sake of brevity, we’ve only listed 50 below.