The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic pain is likely to push the stressed assets — bad loans plus restructured credit — in the micro, small enterprise (MSME) pool to 17-18 per cent by March 2022, from 14 per cent in March 2021, according to CRISIL.

       For the retail credit, rise in stressed assets is pegged at 4-5 per cent in March 2022 from 3 per cent estimated in March 2021.

       Krishnan Sitaraman, Senior Director and Deputy Chief Ratings Officer, CRISIL Ratings, said:？“The retail and MSME segments, which together form 40 per cent of bank credit, are expected to see higher accretion of NPAs and stressed assets this time around."