A massive pile up of bad loans at its subsidiaries pulled down by 99.6 per cent the consolidated net profit of nation's largest lender SBI to Rs 20.7 crore for the September quarter, while its standalone provisioning rose 3-fold.
The bank had reported net profit of Rs 4,991.70 crore in the same quarter of last financial year, 2015-16.
The Gross Non-Performing Asset (GNPA) ratio for the SBI Group more than doubled to 8.49 per cent from 4.32 per cent while that of net NPA soared to 5.10 per cent from 2.27 per cent.
On a standalone basis, SBI's own provisions jumped to Rs 8,686 crore from Rs 6,387 crore as the asset quality worsened with GPNAs almost doubling to 7.14 per cent as against 4.15 per cent, while net NPAs almost doubled to 4.19 per cent in the quarter from 2.14 per cent.
Similarly, on a standalone basis, the bank reported 34.56 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 2,538 crore from Rs 3,879 crore a year ago.
"Provisions have gone up by 36 per cent and as a result net profit is down to Rs 2,538 crore," Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya told reporters here.
The lower profit was also due to low net interest income which inched up by a paltry 1.30 per cent to Rs 14,437 crore from Rs 14,253 crore.
"The NPA percentages look very much larger because of the denominator, that is, the book itself has not increased in as much as it had increased in the year-ago quarter," Bhattacharya said.
She said the bad loan numbers will stabilise and come down when the resolution process starts.
Fresh slippages in the quarter almost doubled to Rs 10,341 crore from Rs 5,875 crore. As of end of the quarter, its watch list stood at Rs 25,951 crore after Rs 4,853 crore accounts slipped into NPA in the quarter.
"The slippages have happen mainly from the stressed lists. The amount which has come from outside the list is because of the fact that we have very many small accounts," she said.
Bhattacharya said as resolution will start some of this watchlist numbers to come down.
"To that extend the watchlist at Rs 25,951 will probably go down by another Rs 5,000-7,000 crore," she said.
The bank recovered Rs 1,344 crore of loans in the quarter and upgraded Rs 206 crore of loans. It sold Rs 15 crore of bad loan to asset reconstruction company during the reporting period.
The domestic net interest margin declined by 27 basis
points to 3.05 per cent from 3.32 per cent.
Deposits grew by 13.76 per cent to Rs 18,58,999 crore and advances grew 8.11 per cent to Rs 14,81,831 crore.
The bank had earlier set a loan growth target of 12 per cent but had later said that it may revise it in the second half.
"In the second quarter, loan growth has been very-very slow for various reasons. We have also internally taken the decision about not really increasing our exposure to those areas where peripheral business is not there.
"To that extent we will stick to our original target between 11-12 per cent but at the end of the third quarter we will try to give guidance whether we can come up to that level," she said.
The bank's scrip closed at Rs 272.90, down 3.09 per cent, on BSE which ended at 26,818.82, down 2.54 per cent.
