Canara Bank profit before tax rises 40% to Rs 531.42 crore in Dec quarter

Advances grow at tepid pace in Q3, indicating slowing loan demand

Public sector lender Canara Bank on Thursday reported a marginal rise in net profit as asset quality improved for the bank with lesser outgo towards provisioning during the third quarter of current financial year.

The Bengaluru-headquartered firm posted profit before tax (PBT) of Rs 531.42 crore in Q3, a rise of around 40 per cent as against Rs 379.90 crore reported a year ago. 

Net profit of the firm rose 3.77 per cent at Rs 330 crore, as against Rs 317.52 crore reported a year ago. Sequentially, profit declined 9.67 per cent. Rise in profit was mostly attributed to lesser outgo towards provisioning for non-performing assets.

Its total income stood at Rs 14,001.63 crore during the quarter ended December 2019, up 3.61 per cent over the same period of last fiscal year. The tepid growth in income was mainly attributed to subdued rise in credit growth, reflecting the lack of loan demand in the general economy. 

While gross deposits for the lender went up by 8.64 per cent at Rs 6.25 trillion, gross advances rose only by only 0.64 per cent at Rs 4.38 trillion.

However, the bank which is in the midst of an amalgamation with Syndicate Bank, improved the asset quality for the second consecutive quarter.

Gross non-performing assets (NPA) declined to 8.36 per cent in the December quarter from 8.68 per cent reported in the previous one. 

Similarly, net NPA went down to 5.15 per cent from 5.05 per cent reported in second quarter.  Similarly, the provision coverage ratio also improved to 70.97 per cent in Q3, as against 70.11 per cent in the previous quarter.