Indian Bank net profit drops 37%

Indian Bank's net profit for the quarter ended December fell 37.1 per cent to Rs 330.58 crore, compared with Rs 525.92 crore in the year-ago period, primarily owing to higher provisions. The bank's total income stood at Rs 3,786.63 crore, against Rs 3,505.92 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. From February 9, the bank plans to cut its base rate by 30 basis points---from 10.5 per cent to 10.2 per cent.

Chairman and Managing Director T M Bhasin said during the quarter, the bank had to make additional provisioning of about Rs 150 crore. Provisioning towards the pension corpus for the voluntary retirement scheme stood at Rs 40 crore. “Also, there was an ad hoc provision of Rs 15 crore towards expected wage revision. In addition, Rs 96 crore had been provided towards restructured assets,” he said.