Singaporean lender DBS' net marginally improves in FY17

Singaporean lender DBS Bank today said its net profit rose to Rs 12.8 crore in fiscal 2017 from Rs 8.6 crore a year ago, as non-performing assets (NPAs) continued to be remain elevated.
There was a marginal increase in net profit to Rs 12.8 crore from the previous year "despite continued pressure due to drag from NPAs," the bank said in a statement.
The foreign bank was severely hit by its lending bets in the infrastructure sector, which had led it to report a loss of Rs 275 crore in FY15. In FY16, its parent had to infuse over Rs 600 crore in core capital in the Indian arm.

The bank, which operates 12 branches at present in India, was the first to apply to the RBI to turn into a wholly -owned subsidiary which is preferred by the regulator. The foreign lender, however, is yet to get a go-ahead.
The bank's net NPAs nearly halved to 2.12 per cent as of March 2017, down from 4.34 per cent in March 2016, on recoveries, sale of bad loans to asset reconstruction companies as well as some write-offs, it said.
"Over the previous financial year our focused approach led to an all-around growth in advances and deposits and improvement in asset quality," DBS Bank's country head Surojit Shome was quoted as saying in the statement.

The net advances increased 23.7 per cent to Rs 21,838 crore from Rs 17,653 crore, while deposits rose 15.2 per cent to Rs 26,991 crore.

Within deposits, the share of the low-cost current and savings accounts increased to 9.4 per cent from 8.1 per cent, largely on the back of a 69.8 per cent growth in savings account balances to Rs 782.1 crore.
Capital adequacy ratio dipped to 16.49 per cent from 18.64 per cent, but the bank pointed out that the year-ago period was helped by fund infusion by the parent.
The bank's net investments came down 34.2 per cent with the plateauing in rates after the decline, and this moderated its total assets growth to 1.6 per cent to Rs 44,542 crore.