IOB Q3 net loss widens to Rs 971 cr as NPA pinches

Public sector Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) today said its net loss widened to Rs 971.17 crore during the third quarter of this fiscal as bad loans ratio remained over 20 per cent.
The bank had reported a net loss of Rs 554.44 crore in the October-December quarter of the previous fiscal.
Sequentially, the loss narrowed compared with Rs 1,222.50 crore in the second quarter ended September 2017.
Total income of the bank also fell to Rs 5,062.38 crore during October-December period of 2017-18, against Rs 5,599.50 crore in the same period of 2016-17, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

Interest income stood at Rs 4,254.69 crore for the quarter, against Rs 4,878.40 crore in year ago same period. Non-interest income rose to Rs 807.70 crore, against Rs 721.11 crore in the year-ago period.
Even as the bank cut its bad loan proportion marginally, non-performing assets (NPAs) still remain at elevated level with gross NPAs at 21.95 per cent of the gross advances on December 31, 2017, against 22.42 per cent at end-December 2016.

Net NPAs, or bad loans, were 13.08 per cent of the net loans by the end of third quarter this fiscal, down from 14.32 per cent by same period last fiscal.

In absolute terms, gross NPAs were Rs 33,266.88 crore as on December 31, 2017, versus Rs 34,502.13 crore in the same period of 2016. Net NPAs were Rs 17,761.22 crore against Rs 19,900.75 crore.
Thus, the provisions for bad loans and contingencies were raised to Rs 1,640.25 crore for the quarter under review.
The bank said there were recoveries of Rs 3,020.53 crore during the quarter, higher than Rs 2,446 crore a year ago, while total slippages for the December quarter were restricted to Rs 1,431.77 crore.
IOB said it has rebalanced the credit portfolio with retail, agri and MSME share of total domestic advances, improving from 54.18 per cent to 64.75 per cent year-on-year.

The return on assets were negative at 1.45 per cent for the quarter, against (-)0.79 per cent in the same period last year.
The deposits of the bank as on December 31, 2017, were Rs 2.16 lakh crore and advances were Rs 1.51 lakh crore.
Stock of the bank closed 4.30 per cent higher at Rs 21.85 on Monday.