Canara Bank net up 30% to Rs 356.29 crore

BS 200 SCORECARD

Canara Bank has posted 30 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 356.2 crore for the third quarter ended December 2005 as against the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal. Total income has increased to Rs 2,551.2 crore, 14.3 per cent higher than Rs 2,230.7 crore in the year-ago quarter.

M B N Rao, CMD, Canara Bank, said the performance for the third quarter has been in tune with the bank's expectations. "We do not foresee any immediate hike in interest rates either on deposits or advances and a direction for this might be there during the RBI's monetary review on Tuesday," he said.

Operating profit has moved up by 14.6 per cent to reach Rs 699.18 crore. This was driven by a 26 per cent growth in net interest income due to improved performance of the bank's core operations.

Capital adequacy ratio stood at 12.05 per cent compared with 12.78 per cent as at March 2005, due to higher growth in the credit portfolio and higher risk weights for retail credit. Net NPA level has come down to Rs 846 crore, with the net NPA ratio registering 173 basis points decline to 1.2 per cent from 2.93 per cent at December 2004.

Gross NPA also came down to Rs 2,204 crore with gross NPA ratio further declining to 3.06 per cent from 6.39 per cent as at December 2004. The bank could effect a cash recovery of Rs 956 crore during the first nine months of 2005-06 as against Rs 525 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

On an annualised basis, return on assets worked out to 1.16 per cent compared with 1.04 per cent for the preceding quarter and 1.02 per cent for the third quarter of the last fiscal.

Annualised EPS stood at Rs 34.76 as against Rs 29.92 at the end of the second quarter and Rs 27.06 as at March 2005. The book value further improved to Rs 166.69.

Credit to deposits ratio as at December 2005 stood at 67.51 per cent, compared with 57.18 per cent at December 2004. For the nine months ended December 2005, incremental credit deposit ratio was at a robust 133 per cent.