Contrary to expectations, six out of eight nationalised banks have been loss-providers to the investors. ``While there has been a huge appreciation in SBI and some in Corporation Bank, this sector's balance issues have collectively given a loss of nearly Rs 900 crore to the investors. The story is not very different with the other sector banks, though with lesser losses,'' said a study by Prime Database.

Similarly in the terms of oversubscription, which is a measure of mass appeal, while the Global Trust Bank's issue in August 1994 topped with a 57 time oversubcription followed by Federal Bank (56 times) and HDFC Bank (53 times), all issues since November 1997 have seen an oversubscription of less than four times.

The future of bank issues, presently seems uncertain, specially given the rising level of NPAs,the general state of the economy and the poor performance of the earlier bank issues. Though there are as many as 20 banks who had announced at some time thier plans to tap the market, most such announcements having been made during the buoyant days, only a couple of these may actually see the light of the day in the next few months, IDBI being one of them.

Of the nationalised banks, PNB had come very close to making its Rs 500 crore public issue having got even its prospectus approved by SEBI in April 1998. Poor market conditions, have, however, forced a continuous deferment.