United Bank net loss widens to Rs 883 cr in Q2

United Bank of India Tuesday reported widening of net loss to Rs 883.17 crore in the second quarter of the ongoing financial year due to higher provisioning and contingencies.

The state-owned bank reported a loss of Rs 344.83 crore in the September quarter of 2017-18.

In the quarter ended June this fiscal, the bank had posted a net loss of Rs 388.68 crore.

Net loss for the reported quarter was mainly on account of higher provisioning, the bank said in a release.

Total income during the quarter stood at Rs 2,600.47 crore, up from Rs 2,584.89 crore in the same period of 2017-18.

The bank's overall provisioning and contingencies during the reported quarter nearly doubled to Rs 1,481.24 crore as against Rs 753.09 crore in the year-ago period.

However, there was a write-back of Rs 1,096.94 crore with respect to provision for non-performing assets (NPAs) during the quarter, which was higher than a write-back of Rs 876.15 crore in the second quarter of 2017-18.

Asset quality of the bank worsened as gross NPAs rose to 22.69 per cent of gross loans as at end-September 2018 from 18.80 per cent by the same period of 2017.

Net NPAs rose to 14.36 per cent from 11.63 per cent.

NPA provisions, both gross and net, showed improvement sequentially.

In value terms, gross NPAs stood at Rs 15,163.28 crore by the end of September 2018 as against Rs 12,892.67 crore in the year-ago period.

Net NPAs were valued at Rs 8,658.10 crore as against Rs 7,279.64 crore.

Shares of United Bank settled 2 per cent higher at Rs 12.22 apiece on the BSE.