Federal Bank net up 497% at Rs 72 cr

BS 200 SCORECARD

Aluva-based Federal Bank has posted 496.50 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 71.64 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2005 as compared with Rs 12.01 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2004.

This phenomenal jump in profit figures can be explained by the fact that in the July-September quarter of the previous fiscal, the bank had transferred government securities portfolio to the held-to-maturity category, which had then caused a dent in its profit figures for that quarter.

The bank has now fully provided for its standard assets in this quarter, said the chairman and managing director, M Venugopalan.

RBI, in its mid-term review of annual credit and monetary policy, had raised the provisioning of standard assets to 40 basis points from 25 basis points. Total income increased 23.45 per cent to Rs 410.87 crore for the third quarter this fiscal from Rs 332.82 crore in Q3-05.

Total expenditure, on the other hand, rose by 19.87 per cent at Rs 298.28 crore for the quarter under review from Rs 248.83 crore in the corresponding quarter of the preceding fiscal.

Operating profit has also showed a healthy gain of 34.05 per cent at Rs 112.59 crore in the reporting quarter from Rs 83.99 crore in the comparable quarter, a year earlier.

However, the bank's capital adequacy ratio dipped a tad to 11.34 per cent in October-December quarter of 2005 as against 12.01 per cent in the comparable period.

The net non-performing assets (NPAs) for the current quarter stood at 1.41 per cent. Federal Bank is looking to amalgamate Ganesh Bank of Kurundwad (GBK) with itself. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had made public a draft scheme of this amalgamation last week.