SBBJ net up 34% on recovery, fee income; NPAs soar to 4%

Net interest income rose 33% to Rs 741 crore

Public sector lender State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur today reported 33.71% increase in net profit at Rs 238 crore in the quarter to March on recoveries and higher fee income, which helped offset a spike in bad loans.

The net profit in year-ago period stood at Rs 178.24 crore.

"Annual charges such as service charges and recovery in written-off accounts helped in higher profit in the quarter," managing director B Sriram said here.

For the full year, the recovery of the bank, which is an associate of the State Bank Group, stood at Rs 76 crore out of which Rs 60 crore came in the March quarter. In FY13, recovery stood at Rs 38 crore, while in the fourth quarter of last FY13 it was Rs 15 crore.

However, for the full year, the bank reported a flat net profit at Rs 732 crore, which in the year-ago period stood at Rs 730 crore.

Net interest income rose 33.03% to Rs 741 crore from Rs 557 crore.

However, gross non-performing assets deteriorated to 4.18% in the quarter at Rs 2,733 crore as against 3.62% a year-ago while net NPAs stood at 2.76% at Rs 1,771 crore as against 2.27%.

Gross slippage for quarter was at Rs 817 crore.

"Going forward, I am very hopeful that because of the measures taken in the last year, we should be able to do much better on NPA front in retail side. But on commercial side, we will continue to see some pressure for some more time," Sriram said.

The bank set aside Rs 267 crore as against Rs 196 crore during the quarter. Provision coverage ratio of the bank was 56.67% as against 58.64% previous year.

Net interest margin improved to 3.35% from 3.14%.