New Delhi, March 25 -- A yawning gap has been reported between bad loans on credit cards issued by public-sector and private banks. Given the difficulty with which the dud-loan burden of lenders in India-particularly state-run ones-was brought under control in recent years, this must not escape notice. After a painful and prolonged clean-up, banks must not repeat past mistakes.

Unfortunately, a pile-up of credit left in the lurch on the plastic cards of public sector banks (PSBs) suggests otherwise. In a rush to capture bigger chunks of the 'revenge buying' witnessed in the aftermath of the covid pandemic, PSBs might have been less than discriminate in issuing cards, with the result that their bad-loan ratio on these stood at 12.7% at th...