mumbai, July 29 -- Indian banks continued to experience stress in their unsecured loan books in the first quarter of the current financial year, with select lenders and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) flagging higher bad debt in new segments such as credit for small businesses and retail commercial vehicles. Notably, the pockets of unsecured stress were seen in various segments such as microfinance, retail commercial vehicle, MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprises) and personal loans and credit cards, according to bankers' post-earnings analyst calls in recent days. Add to that the cyclical impact of higher farm loan slippages, and most lenders saw elevated provisions for potential loan losses and credit cost weighing on their balance sheet during the three months through June. "Lenders are still cautious amid the asset quality stress in unsecured segment, which is reflected in slow loan growth in this segment. This continues to tighten liquidity for the borrowers and their ability to refinance the existing loans, which in turn is leading to asset quality stress for lenders. The big challenge for the lenders is assessment of income," said Anil Gupta, senior vice president, Icra. The country's largest private sector lenders such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank highlighted a seasonal jump in agriculture slippages. Axis Bank was also an outlier in terms of bad-loan provisions, which surged due to a shift in its classification methodology for certain loan segments such as retail cash credit and one-time settlement of stressed loans. While Axis Bank said that the shift in methodology was to align the bank's stress recognition as per industry best practices, the country's largest consumer finance lender Bajaj Finance reported a substantial rise in delinquencies in MSME and business banking loans for the first time, besides the auto finance portfolio. "MSME business has shown some strain since February so it's coming a little too suddenly. We've taken a whole host of actions to prune business. It's likely that both these businesses will grow a lot more slowly in the current year," Rajeev Jain, vice-chairman, Bajaj Finance, said in a post-earnings call on Friday. "Credit costs were principally elevated in two-wheeler and three-wheeler business, which is a winding down business. That's a good news. The captive book has given us a lot of trouble, or continues to give us trouble," Jain added. However Shriram Finance was an outlier, seeing a sequential drop in credit cost to 1.9% in the first quarter from 2.4% in the preceding three months. "The questions from investors have been that their numbers always come with a lag and hence we are not confident," said Suresh Ganapathy, managing director of Macquarie Research. "Plus, the guidance on margins and consequent delivery of the same has been a disappointment, as per investors." Banks such as IDFC First Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bandhan Bank reported weaker profitability, hurt by a rise in microfinance slippages. They, however, said that while stress in the sector is expected to remain elevated in the current quarter, it appears to have peaked....