State Bank of Saurashtra eyes Rs 200 crore profit

State Bank of Saurashtra (SBS), which reported a net profit of Rs 92.55 crore in the last fiscal, hopes to achieve a net profit of Rs 160 crore by the end of the current fiscal. It expects to touch the Rs 200-crore mark in the next fiscal.

With a sharp decline in the Non-Performing Asset (NPA) percentage, SBS is also aiming achieve the zero NPA status by end of the next fiscal.

S K Singh, the new managing director, who took charge on Wednesday, told Business Standard, "The Bank is showing signs of turnaround, the profit is going up and NPAs are declining. We hope to be one of the few nationalised banks in the country with zero NPA within the next year.

"Though we are incurring losses due to the reducing interest income on securities and deposits, we are confident of reporting a Rs 200 crore net profit by end of the next fiscal, which should be at least 25 per cent higher than our projected net profit of Rs 160 crore for the current year."

The Bank reported a net profit of Rs 85.21 crore fore the first nine months of the current year. The profit crossed the Rs 100-crore mark by end of the December, 2003.

"Armed with the provisions of the new Securitisation Act, SBS has intensified its recovery operations during the entire year and our net NPA percentage has now come down to below 1 per cent from 3.53 per cent reported by end of the last fiscal year", Singh said.

"We are optimistic of recovering further NPA and soon will become a zero-NPA", he added.

The Bank has so far issued around 400 notices under the Securitisation Act to the defaulters and according to Singh, the initiatives have yielded positive results.

SBS, which has at present, a network of 416 branches across the country also achieved 100 per cent computerisation of the branches by end of January, 2004 against its target of achieving the cent per cent target by end of March, 2004.