Indian Bank pre-tax profit up three-fold to Rs 593 cr; net NPA pared

Total income up 18%. post-tax profit up 2.5x to Rs 359 cr; one bad loan referred to RBI as fraud

Public sector lender, Indian Bank, has posted a three-fold growth in profit before tax at Rs 592.58 crore during the quarter ended September 30, 2019, from Rs 185.70 crore during the same quarter last year.

The bank's total income grew 18 per cent to Rs 6,047.14 crore during the quarter from Rs 5,130.47 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

Net profit during the quarter grew about 150 per cent to Rs 358.78 crore from 149.19 crore during the same period last year.

The lender's gross non-performing assets (NPA) as a percentage of advances stood at 7.21 per cent during the quarter, as compared to 7.17 per cent during the quarter ended September 2018. Net NPA stood at 3.54 per cent during the quarter as against 4.23 per cent.

The bank reported one loan account in the power and steel sector under the Borrowal Fraud category to RBI during the second quarter. It was a consortium loan involving 33 lenders and an amount of Rs 829.77 crore was outstanding as on September 30 this year.

The account has been an NPA since FY16 and a provision amounting to Rs 479.48 crore was made against it at the end of the second quarter of the current fiscal. The remaining provisioning in the fraud account will be done by the lender in terms of the extant RBI guidelines, Indian Bank said.

The bank's non-performing loan provision coverage ratio stood at 68.06 per cent as on September 30, 2019.

Padmaja Chunduru, Managing Director & CEO, Indian Bank said focus on asset quality, business growth, increasing other income, and controlling slippages have helped the bank.

Asserting that sustained focus on arresting slippages would continue, Chunduri said it had narrowed to Rs 1,624 crore in the last quarter from Rs 1,769 crore in the December quarter of FY19. The slippage had dropped to Rs 741 crore during the quarter under review.

She added that retail, agriculture and MSME make up 61 per cent of the loan book.

The bank received Rs 2,534 crore from the Government of India towards preferential allotment of Equity shares during the quarter, and RBI in a letter this month permitted it to consider this amount as part of CET-1 (Common Equity Tier-1) capital, pending allotment of equity shares.