Catholic Syrian Bank net profit up 140%

Thrissur-based Catholic Syrian Bank (CSB) has registered a 140 per cent increase in net profit for the nine months ended December 31, 2007, to Rs 31.70 crore against Rs 13.26 crore y-o-y.

Operating profit has increased to Rs 54.63 crore compared with Rs 38.60 crore in the year-ago period, while net interest income has increased to Rs 122.61 crore from Rs 117.01 crore. Other income increased to Rs 82.20 crore from Rs 22.24 crore, according to a press release issued by the bank.

Income on investments increased to Rs 82.23 crore from Rs 69.43 crore as on December, 31, 2006. Capital to Risk Assets Ratio (CRAR) is comfortable at 11.74 per cent as against the regulator's stipulation of 9 per cent.

Return on Assets has increased to 74 basis points as against 34 basis points.

Earnings per share has improved to Rs 25.31 (Rs 33.75-annualised) from Rs 12.34 (Rs 16.46-annualised) after the induction of FDI of $75.67 million.

At present, the bank has 357 branches and an extension counter. The bank has received licence from RBI to open 19 branches and 25 offsite ATMs, of which 13 branches and 17 ATMs have already been opened in the current year.

The remaining branches and ATMs will be opened before March 2008. Moreover, the bank has obtained permission to open seven mobile ATMs at various locations and will be made operational before March 31. CSB is the first private sector Bank from Kerala to obtain such permission.

The bank will shortly introduce 'CSB...Upahaar' "� VISA enabled Gift cards, for which due permission from RBI has been obtained.

The bank is embarking a plan for rolling out the Core Banking Solution (CBS) jointly with Chennai-based software company Laser soft Infotech. Wipro Infotek is the system integrator of the CBS and Sun Micro Systems is the technology infrastructure partner for the project.