NPAs under control: Canara chief

Avinash Mahajan, CMD, Canara Bank, says its cost of funds has come down by 40 basis points and the bank’s net non-performing assets would come down to 1 per cent.

The bank’s deposits have risen by about 24 per cent and loan demands by almost 28 per cent. Do you think it is maintainable in the next nine months?
This is a Y-o-Y growth. Last year, we grew 29 per cent. In this quarter too, you are seeing a growth of 28 per cent. We believe this fiscal, up to March 2010, it will be around 22-24 per cent.

How are the key parameters, such as cost of funds and even NIMs actually shaping up to the June quarter?
The cost of funds has come down by 40 basis points and the cost of advances has come down by 72-73 basis points.

Analysts are expecting there will be a rise in NPAs in FY10 and FY11. What kind of net NPA are you really looking for? How are your recoveries really shaping up?
There is a small increase in NPAs because of some delinquency on one or two accounts. We don’t expect NPAs to go up further. Our recovery efforts are yielding fruit. In this quarter, we have made a good recovery of Rs 221 crore, including the right of account of around Rs 79 crore. We are likely to make more recoveries and hope to freeze NPAs at these levels.

B>Analysts are very concerned about NPAs. How do you expect your NPAs to pan out from here?
The net NPA level will be around 1.05-1.1 per cent, may be around 1 per cent.