Ahead of amalgamation with BoB; Dena Bank narrows Q3 loss on lower NPA provisions

Ahead of its amalgamation with Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank Thursday said it has trimmed net losses to Rs 178.47 crore during third quarter ended December of this fiscal as bad loans provisions nearly halved.

The bank had posted a net loss of Rs 380 crore in the October-December period of 2017-18.

The bank also made cash recoveries of Rs 1,036.40 crore in non-performing assets (NPAs) during the quarter, higher from Rs 170.79 crore recovered during the same period of 2017-18.

During the nine months to December of the current fiscal 2018-19, total cash recoveries against NPAs were Rs 2,619.34 crore, the bank said in a release. It was Rs 661.85 crore during the April-December period of the previous financial year.

Total income of the bank was down to Rs 2,293 crore in the quarter under review as against Rs 2,476 crore in the year-ago period as the bank has been put under some restrictions by the Reserve Bank under the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA), Dena Bank Managing Director and CEO Karnam Sekar.

It improved the asset quality as the net non-performing assets (NPAs) came down to 10.44 per cent of total advances at December-end 2018 from 11.52 per cent in year-ago same period.

Gross NPAs, however, rose to 19.77 per cent of gross advances as against 19.56 per cent a year ago, as per the regulatory filing of the bank to the exchanges.

In absolute terms, net NPAs stood at Rs 6,142.47 crore by the end of third quarter 2018-19 as against Rs 7,564.20 crore a year ago.

Gross NPAs stood at Rs 12,998.46 crore, down from Rs 14,168.78 crore a year ago.

Speaking to PTI, Sekar said: "After the amalgamation of the Dena Bank (with Bank of Baroda along with Vijaya Bank), we thought we should focus on our NPAs. We thought that high level of gross NPA is the basic problem of dena bank, so we have decided that we should attack that."
The lender also informed that "the board of directors of Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank at their respective meetings held on January 2, 2019, have approved the amalgamation of the three banks."