RBL Bank Q1 net up 41% to Rs 267 cr on higher fee income, fall in bad loans

RBL Bank Friday reported a jump of 41 per cent in June quarter net profit at Rs 267.10 crore on higher fee income and fall in bad loans.

The private sector lender registered a profit of Rs 190 crore during April-June quarter of 2018-19.

Total income during June quarter of the ongoing financial year rose to Rs 2,503.88 crore, as against Rs 1,690.19 crore in the year-ago period, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

The interest earned during the quarter rose to Rs 2,022.67 crore from Rs 1,364.22 crore a year earlier.

Net Interest Margin (NIM) --a gauge of profitability-- rose to 4.31 per cent for the quarter as against 4.04 per cent in the first quarter of 2018-19 , an improvement of 27 basis points, the bank said.

Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) fell to 1.38 per cent of the gross advances by end of June 2019, as against 1.40 per cent by end of June 2018. Net NPAs or bad loan ratio too came down to 0.65 per cent from 0.75 per cent.

In terms of value, gross NPAs rose to Rs 789.21 crore by June 2019, as against Rs 595.94 crore a year ago. Net NPAs were Rs 371.64 crore, up from Rs 315.77 crore earlier.

The provisions for bad loans and contingencies for the June quarter were raised to Rs 213.18 crore from Rs 140.35 crore in the year-ago period.

"The bank has had a good quarter of strong performance and has continued to maintain its growth momentum and improvement in operating metrics. However, given the difficult environment we do expect to face some challenges on some of our exposures in the near term," MD & CEO Vishwavir Ahuja said.

At the same time, given the strong momentum in the bank's businesses, RBL Bank expects to maintain a healthy profitable growth over the coming quarters, Ahuja said.

RBL Bank stock was trading 12.92 per cent down at Rs 504.95 on BSE.