Allahabad Bank posts Q3 net loss at Rs 1,264 cr

State-owned Allahabad Bank has reported a net loss of Rs 1,263.79 crore in the third quarter ended December on rising bad loans.
The bank had registered a net profit of Rs 75.26 crore in October-December period of the previous fiscal. Sequentially also, there was a net profit of Rs 70.20 crore during the second quarter ended September of this fiscal.
"The bank has posted net loss due to higher provisions made for aging NPAs and NCLT referred accounts and losses incurred in treasury operations during the quarter," the bank said in a release.
Total income of the bank fell to Rs 4,755.33 crore under the reported quarter of 2017-18 against Rs 5,025.13 crore in same period of 2016-17, showed the bank's balance sheet in a regulatory filing.

The operating expenses reduced to Rs 936.24 crore from Rs 1,049.84 crore.
Asset quality of the lender remained in a bad situation as gross non-performing assets (NPAs) or the bad loans rose to 14.38 per cent of the gross advances by end of third quarter, against 12.51 per cent in same period a year ago.

Net NPAs were 8.97 per cent as against 8.65 per cent.
In absolute terms, gross NPAs stood at Rs 23,260.81 crore as on December 31, 2017 as against Rs 19,091.89 crore on December 31, 2016.
Net NPAs were Rs 13,646.52 crore, up from Rs 12,621.12 crore.

Thus, the provisions for bad loans were hiked to Rs 2,044.23 crore for the third quarter as against Rs 795.82 crore in the year-ago period.
Allahabad Bank said it provided Rs 575.91 crore by December quarter out of the total requirement of Rs 807.04 crore by end of March 2018, as per RBI directive issued in June with respect to nine accounts under provisions of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
An additional Rs 157.13 crore provision was made by the end of December quarter of the total requirement of Rs 216.37 crore for the full year, as per second RBI directive in August related to certain accounts under IBC.

Total deposit of the bank stood at Rs 2.11 lakh crore by the end of December 2017 and gross credit was Rs 1.62 lakh crore.
Additionally, the bank said the board of directors today approved the proposed Rs 1,500 crore capital infusion against preference issue of shares.
The lender also informed that it received an overwhelming response from its issuance of up to 5 crore new equity shares to its eligible employees under employee share purchase scheme --AllBank-ESPS.
Stock of the bank closed 7.79 per cent down at Rs 56.25 apiece on BSE today.