The British banking major Standard Chartered today said the profit from its Indian operations grew to $1.06 billion (around Rs 4,876 crore) in 2009 as against $891 million (around Rs 4,094 crore) in the previous year.
StanChart India witnessed a 10 per cent growth in its loan book in 2009 on the back of a healthy rise in consumer advances and loans to small companies, StanChart India Chief Executive Neeraj Swaroop said here today.
"We've seen a loan growth of 10 per cent in 2009. This has come from both wholesale and consumer banking segments. The growth in 2010 is likely to be in the range of 15-20 per cent," Swaroop said.
With the bank's Indian profits crossing $1 billion this year, the country now accounts for about 21 per cent of the group's total profits, Swaroop added.
At present, India is the second largest market for StanChart in terms of earnings after Hong Kong, where the net profit went up to $1.062 billion in 2009 from $989 million in the previous year.
As part of ramping up its operations in the country, the bank plans to hire 2,000 more people here this year, Swaroop said. At present, the lender has total loan book of $9 billion (around Rs 41,400 crore) while the deposits are $11 billion (Rs 50,600 crore).
The proportion of current and savings account deposits to total deposits stood of StanChart India at 43 per cent, which grew by 25 per cent during the year, Swaroop said.
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Total income of the bank, during the year went up to $1.813 billion as against $1.694 billion. At present, the bank has a capital adequacy ratio of 12.6 per cent.
During the year, the bank saw a slight rise in its loan impairments, which rose to $182 million from $157 million in the previous year. Net non-performing assets rose to 1.9 per cent during the year while gross NPAs stood at 2.9 per cent as of December 2009.
The net interest margin, which is the spread between interest earned and interest expended, stood at above 4 per cent as of end December, Swaroop said.
Moving ahead, the lender expects to grow both its wholesale and consumer banking divisions significantly and has also decided to set up 100 new ATMs in off branch locations, Swaroop said.
Replying to a question on StanChart's involvement in the Bharti-Zain deal, the bank said it is still in discussion and is yet to finalise anything in this regard.