State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ) on Friday reported a 31.21 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 215.11 crore in the December quarter amid increase in core income and lower provisioning. Net profit was Rs 163.94 crore in the same period last financial year.
“This is the fourth consecutive quarter in which we have shown 30 per cent growth in net profit. There has been an improvement in asset quality and no major restructuring proposal is in the pipeline,” Managing Director Shiva Kumar said.
Net operating income grew 10.96 per cent to Rs 840 crore over Rs 757 crore reported in the same period last financial year. While the net interest income reported a marginal 6.88 per cent rise to Rs 672.88 crore, net interest margin improved to 3.85 per cent from 3.62 per cent.
Kumar said, “Going ahead, we hope our NIMs (Net Interest Margin) will improve to around 3.90 per cent by the March quarter as we are planning to reduce deposit rates in the future”.
He added the yields on advances also improved 0.66 per cent to 12 per cent from 11.34 per cent a year ago. Advances grew 17 per cent year-on-year and deposits 14.5 per cent in the third quarter. Its Casa (current account savings accounts) were 37 per cent in the December quarter.
On the bad loan front, the gross NPA (non-performing assets) declined to 3.13 per cent from 3.43 per cent a year ago, helping net NPA to improve to 1.88 per cent from 2.13 per cent year-on-year.
“Total restructuring book is Rs 4,300 crore and we don’t see any major pipeline of restructuring in the near future,” Kumar said. Referring to possibility of reduction in base rate, Kumar said the bank would take a call in the next asset-liability committee meeting, adding the bank had already reduced its base rate by 0.25 per cent in the last quarter. “We will look at reducing our deposit rates in the near future,” Kumar said.
Capital adequacy ratio rose to 12.18 per cent with a Tier-I capital of 8.77 per cent by the end of the December quarter. “We are comfortable as far as capital adequacy is concerned. We don’t need any capital support from the parent SBI as of now,” Kumar said.
