Allahabad Bank Q4 net profit dips 68.47 percent

Public sector Allahabad Bank Tuesday reported a 68.47 percent dip in net profit for the quarter ended March 31, 2013, to Rs.126.15 crore from Rs.400.22 crore in the corresponding year-ago period.

The Kolkata-headquartered bank attributed the sharp drop in profit to fresh addition of non-performing assets (NPA), higher provisioning and decline in yield on advances, its chairperson and managing director Shubhalakshmi Panse told reporters after announcing the results.

The bank's total income, however, increased to Rs.4,776.90 crore for the period under review from Rs.4,523.38 crore in the year-ago period.

The public sector lender's net interest margin declined to 2.30 percent in the last quarter of fiscal 2012-13 from 3.23 percent in the same period of the previous year.

"The NIM declined because of reduction of profit and higher provisioning," Panse added.

The bank has posted a total income of Rs.18,912.6 crore for 2012-13, as against Rs. 16,821.9 crore during the previous financial year.

The bank also reported a sharp 36.51 percent decline in its net profit in 2012-13 which stood at Rs.1,185 crore, compared to Rs.1,867 crore in 2011-12.

During 2012-13, the bank had to make a total restructuring of Rs.14,875 crore, the CMD said. Now the total restructuring portfolio in the pipeline was about Rs.500 crore-Rs.600 crore.

Total provisioning during January-March 2013 went up to Rs.641 crore from Rs.501 crore in the corresponding period of previous fiscal. The NPA provisioning for the last quarter of 2012-13 was Rs.513 crore, while the figure was Rs.411 crore for the same period in 2011-12.

She said the bank had to suffer a huge addition of NPA during the last fiscal as sectors like power, iron and steel, textiles, chemical industry as well as agriculture contributed to it.

The bank's net NPA sharply increased to 3.19 percent during 2012-13 from 0.98 percent reported during 2011-12.

The bank's gross NPA currently stood at 3.92 percent. Panse, however, said the bank's endeavour would be to bring it down to 3.50-3.40 percent by the end of the ongoing financial year.