Vijaya Bank reports 65.45 % decline in net profit

State-owned Vijaya Bank today said it has reported 65.45 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 79.56 crore during the third quarter of the financial year ended on December 31, 2017, due to higher provisioning.
The bank had posted a net profit of Rs 230.28 crore in the October-December quarter of the 2016-17 financial year.
The bank's total income also declined 7.09 per cent to Rs 3,450.81 crore in the quarter under review from Rs 3,714.37 crore in the corresponding period last year.
"As far the bank's profitability is concerned Net profit we have recorded around Rs 80 crore," Vijaya Bank MD and CEO R A Sankara Narayanan said.

This was after fully providing for mark-to-market provision of Rs 276 crore in treasury segment, "but for that our profit would have been easily more than Rs 350 crore net for this current quarter," he told reporters here.
"NCLT one and two accounts we have fully provided, though RBI gives permission up to March- 2018 to be provided, we have not kept anything pending for the next quarter," Narayanan said.

During the quarter, Vijaya Bank's provision (other than tax) and contingencies grew by 62.35 per cent to Rs 676.92 crore as against Rs 416.95 crore in the year-ago period.
He expressed confidence that the bank was on the right path, on growth as well as on profitability, and also on containment of NPA and improvement in over all segments.

"The top management is very confident that the results for Q4- March 2018 will be equally or much better than what we have recorded so far," Narayanan said.
The bank's gross non-performing assets improved marginally to 6.17 per cent as against 6.98 per cent in the same quarter last fiscal.
Net NPAs also came down to 3.99 per cent in the quarter under review compared to 4.74 per cent a year ago.
Noting that during the last financial year net profit was about Rs 750 crore, Narayanan said "we are currently around Rs 515 crore, so achieving Rs 800 crore will not be difficulty at all, as far as March 2018 is concerned."

He also said the staff productivity and performance of branches, both in retail as well as in priority sectors, has been "really good", and expressed confidence that the bank was poised to record better growth in March 2018 and beyond.