Credit Risk Measurement Practices in Indian Commercial Banks - An Empirical Investigation

Banking institutions have been facing variety of difficulties but the major cause of serious banking problems relates to lax credit standards for borrowers and counterparties, poor portfolio risk management, or a lack of attention to changes in economic or other circumstances that can lead to deterioration in the credit standing of a bank's counterparties. Although credit risk is an important factor that financial institutions should cope with, but the determinants of measuring credit risk have been studied less. This paper attempts to explore the determinants of credit risk measurement and to identify the factors that contribute to credit risk measurement practices in Indian banks and to compare credit risk measurement practices followed by Indian public and private sector banks, the empirical study has been conducted and views of employees of various banks have been tested using statistical tools. This study explored the phenomenon from different perspectives and revealed that single-name credit risk measurement and portfolio credit risk measurement are the key components that contribute to credit risk measurement in Indian banks. From the descriptive and analytical results, it can be concluded that Indian banks efficiently measure credit risk. The results also indicate that there is a significant difference between the Indian public and private sector banks in single-name credit risk measurement while, these banks do not significantly differ in portfolio credit risk measurement aspect.