Bank of India profit drops 70% to Rs 173 cr in Q3 on higher provisioning

State-owned Bank of India (BoI) today reported a steep 70.4% fall in net profit to Rs 173.38 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, on account of higher provisioning and subdued growth in interest income.

The bank had posted net profit of Rs 585.82 crore for the October-December quarter of the 2013-14 fiscal.

Poor performance of the bank pulled its share price down by about 6% to Rs 226.80 on the BSE after the numbers were announced for the third quarter, 2014-15.

As far as BoI's asset quality is concerned, gross NPAs as a percentage to total advances rose to 4.07% from 2.81% in the year-ago period.

Its net NPAs went up to 2.50% from 1.75% at the end of December 2013, BoI said in a statement.

Gross NPA in absolute terms rose significantly to Rs 16,693.66 crore, compared to Rs 10,023.09 crore at the end of December 2013.

As a result, total provisions excluding for income tax, made during the third quarter of 2014-15 were Rs 1,580.72 crore, as against Rs 1,403.74 crore in the year-ago period.

At the same time interest income showed subdued growth at Rs 10,867.76 as against Rs 9,769.16 crore in the same period a year ago.

However, the total income of the bank increased to Rs 11,947.45 crore, from Rs 10,866.29 crore in the year-ago period.

For the first nine months of 2014-15, the bank's net profit declined by 18.7% to Rs 1,765.08 crore as compared to Rs 2,171.76 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal.

It reported total income of Rs 35,375.63 crore in the first three quarters, as against Rs 30,927.85 crore in the same period of last financial year.