Ujiivan SFB posts 2-folds growth in Q3 profit

Small finance lender Ujjivan Small Finance Bank on Wednesday said its profit doubled to Rs 90 crore in October-December 2019, helped by improvement in operational efficiency, stable margins and cost controls.

In the year-ago period, the lender had reported a profit after tax of Rs 45 crore.

"We saw improvement in all parameters. We could maintain our NIMs, costs were under control and operational efficiency also improved," the bank's managing director and CEO Nitin Chugh told PTI.

Net interest margin stood at 10.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2019-20, against 11 per cent in last year.

The bank saw its cost of funds reducing to 8.1 per cent during the quarter from 8.6 per cent in the year-ago period.

Gross advances grew by 46 per cent to Rs 13,617 crore.

Non-micro banking portfolio contributed 22 per cent to the total loan portfolio.

Chugh said the bank faced some issues on repayments in its microfinance portfolio in Assam and a few neighbouring areas after the protest erupted following the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill in December.

Of the total microfinance lending book of Rs 10,000 crore, the lender has an exposure of Rs 430 crore in Assam.

As a prudent measure, it has made a provision of Rs 4.9 crore towards its loan portfolio in the north-eastern state.

"We are working with the state government and Microfinance Institution Networks (MFIN), a self-regulatory organisation (SRO), to resolve issues at Assam," Chugh said.

Gross NPA was at 0.9 per cent as against 1.4 per cent while net NPA stood at 0.4 per cent from 0.3 per cent.

It wrote-off of Rs 12 crore of loans in the third quarter.

Its deposit base stood at Rs 10,656 crore as of December 31, 2019. It serves over 51.0 lakh customers through 574 branches and 17,783 employees spread across 244 districts and 24 states and union territories in the country.