Interesting times. Banks need a lot of ingenuity and a hefty dose of conservatism to limit the downside to their earnings in the next one year at the very least.
Faced with a somewhat broken interest rate corridor within which to maneuver and rising NPL's ratio for FY 2017, banks have stock piled govt debt as an alternative to ride out wave. This however has been done at low/lower yield environment creating the possibility of haircuts if an uptick is registered in the next reporting year.
I expect the NPL ratio to exceed 10% of the industry's loan book at FY 2016 and to further increase for FY 2017. Considering that the current year has a bigger buffer zone for absorbing losses, a smart bank ought to bite the bullet at FY 2016(since Q1, Q2 and Q3 were largely or entirely devoid of caps and still had rising EPS trajectories from year 2015) and provide for as many delinquencies/defaults as possible. This would 'normalize' the EPS going forward and reduce the shock and awe that will be served up at FY 2017.
The banks that don't exercise prudence might find themselves with a grand tale to tell regarding the bigger deviations in their earnings.
The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many people as possible.