SBT Q4 net profit rises 17% to Rs 547 crore

State Bank of Travancore (SBT) today reported a 16.9 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 547 crore for the March quarter.
The SBI associate bank had posted a net profit of Rs 468 crore during the January-March quarter of 2014-15.
For full 2015-16 fiscal, the bank's operating profit stood at Rs 1,798 crore as against Rs 1,372 crore in the previous year, it said in a regulatory filing.
Net profit for the entire fiscal stood at Rs 337.73 crore as against Rs 335.53 crore a year ago.
"The operating profit of the bank was driven by 12 per cent hike in net interest income and 28 per cent surge in fee income," it said.

The company's Board have declared a dividend of Rs 5 per share or 50 per cent, it added.
"The bank has been consistently replacing high cost deposits and bulk deposits with retail deposits to cut interest costs. The high cost deposit and bulk deposits came down sharply from 13.24 per cent to 9.34 per cent year-on-year," Jeevandas Narayan MD SBT said.
SBT stock today closed 0.49 per cent up at Rs 378.35 apiece on BSE.