Indian Bank net falls by Rs.166 crore

Government-owned Indian Bank closed last fiscal with a Rs.166 crore fall in its net profit owing to higher provisioning for bad debts and other accounts despite the total income going up by Rs.1,717 crore.

Announcing the annual results for 2012-13 here Thursday, chairman and managing director T.M. Bhasin said: "The provisioning in absolute terms went up by Rs.400 crore to around Rs.704 crore."

The bank's total income stood at Rs.15,180 crore last fiscal, up from Rs.13,463 crore posted in 2011-12.

Last year the bank's total operating expenditure went up by around 26 percent to Rs.2,750 crore as against Rs.2,187 crore.

Interestingly, the operating expense made a quantum jump of 69 percent during the fourth quarter of last fiscal to Rs.1,003 crore as compared to corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

The bank's gross non-performing assets last fiscal went up to Rs.3,565 crore from around Rs.1,851 crore.

About the expose by Cobra Post news portal on money laundering facilitated by the banks, Bhasin said Indian Bank has suspended an assistant general manager (AGM) for giving "hollow advice".

Bhasin said the bank has decided to make all its operative accounts KYC (know your customer) compliant.

He said the bank employees will be counselled not to give any wrong advice to customers.