Lower base and income from core operations helped state-owned Bank of India post a 60.8 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 653 crore for the quarter ended December. The figure in the third quarter of the previous financial year was Rs 406 crore.
Chairman and Managing Director Alok Mishra said increase in net interest income and healthy recovery leading to lower provisioning for bad assets contributed to profit growth.
Net interest income growth was 33 per cent to Rs 1,987 crore on the back of a 23 per cent rise in domestic advances. A rise in yield on advances and a fall in cost of deposits helped the bank improve its net interest margins by 49 basis points to 3.09 per cent.
Growth in non-interest income, excluding treasury, was 21 per cent, which also contributed to the profitability, said Executive Director B A Prabhakar. Rising yields on government bonds dented treasury income. Profit from sale of investments came down to Rs 59 crore from Rs 137 crore during the same period of the previous year.
Misra said the bank reduced loan growth in the business mortgage segment. Loans for business mortgages fell 22.2 per cent to Rs 1,519 crore.
Deposit growth was 22.6 per cent while current account and saving account deposits grew by 22 per cent over the year.
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Gross non-performing assets were at 2.36 per cent, down from 2.64 per cent in the previous quarter and 2.67 per cent in the third quarter last year.
PSB net up 8.6%
Punjab and Sind Bank has reported an 8.6 per cent growth in net profit to Rs 135.3 crore for the third quarter ended December 31. It had reported a net profit of Rs 124.6 crore in the year-ago period.
Net NPAs declined to 0.88 per cent as compared to 1.03 per cent in the third quarter last year. Net NPAs were down by 26 basis points as compared to the second quarter of the current financial year.
Mishra said provisioning for NPAs came down from Rs 446 crore in the third quarter of FY10 to Rs 124 crore due to upgrade of loan accounts worth Rs 611 crore in the third quarter.