Canara Bank Q1 net rises 17% to Rs 329 crore on bad loan reduction

State-owned Canara Bank on Wednesday reported a 17.08 per cent rise in its standalone net profit to Rs 329.07 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, mainly driven by reduction in bad loans.

The bank had registered a net profit of Rs 281.49 crore in the April-June period of 2018-19.

Total income rose to Rs 14,062.39 crore in the June quarter from Rs 13,192.46 crore in same period a year ago, Canara Bank said in a regulatory filing.

At the same time, interest income rose to Rs 12,200.52 crore in the quarter from 11,359.55 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.

The bank's income from other sources too improved to Rs 1,861.87 crore from Rs 1,832.91 crore.

During the quarter, the bank earned operating profit of Rs 2,440.01 crore.

With regard to asset quality, the bank has exhibited improvement with the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) declining to 8.77 per cent of gross advances at the end of June 2019, as against 11.05 per cent as of June 30, 2018.

Net NPA too came down to 5.35 per cent from 6.91 per cent.

In absolute value, gross NPAs at the end of June, 2019 declined to Rs 39,399.02 crore from Rs 44,659.56 crore as on June 30, 2018. Net NPAs came down to Rs 23,149.62 crore compared to Rs 26,693.50 crore.

As a result, the provisions for bad loans declined to Rs 2,282.70 crore for the first quarter this fiscal, from Rs 2,466.20 crore parked aside for the same period in 2017-18.

Overall provisions and contingencies too eased to Rs 1,899.13 crore as against Rs 2,582.30 crore.

Provision coverage ratio as on June 30, 2019 rose to 68.62 per cent from 60.69 per cent at the end of first quarter last fiscal.

Total business (deposit and advances) of the bank improved by 13 per cent to Rs 10.59 lakh crore at the end of June, 2019. Gross deposits increased by 14.5 per cent to Rs 6.10 lakh crore, while gross advances rose by 11.12 per cent to Rs 4.49 lakh crore at the end of first quarter of the current fiscal.