Mumbai: The country''s largest lender State Bank of India reported 81 per cent jump in its profit after tax to Rs 4,189 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, as against Rs 2,312 crore in the year-ago period. The rise in profit was on account of one-off gains of Rs 1,539.73 crore on sale of certain portion of investment in the lender''s life insurance subsidiary - SBI Life. With this, the bank now holds 55.50 per cent in its life insurance arm, down from 57.60 per cent earlier. "In the third successive quarter, SBI has delivered a strong performance. The net profit as compared to the corresponding period of last year has gone up by 81 per cent. "It is safe to presume that we are asymptomatic and that is not a guarantee of what will happen in the future like any other individual," its chairman Rajnish Kumar told reporters on Friday.
The profit was also helped by a healthy 16.14 per cent growth in its net interest income at Rs 26,642 crore during the quarter. Domestic net interest margin (NIM) improved to 3.24 per cent, registering an increase of 23 bps year-on-year. Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at 5.44 per cent as against 7.53 per cent. Net NPAs were at 1.86 per cent compared to 3.07 per cent. Provision coverage ratio (PCR) improved to 86.32 per cent, up 698 basis points year-on-year. Its loan loss provision was down 19.13 per cent at Rs 9,420 crore, compared to Rs 11,648 crore. During the quarter, the bank made an additional provision of Rs 1,836 crore on account of COVID-19 related accounts. As of June 30, the bank holds Rs 3,008 crore on COVID-19 related accounts, more than the regulatory requirement.
"We have decided to enhance the provision or accelerate the provision over the minimum regulatory," Kumar said. He said for one account, which was declared fraud and for which a dispensation for four quarters is available, the entire amount was provided for during the quarter. The lender also made an adhoc provision of Rs 1,614 crore towards the recently concluded wage revisions in the June quarter. Fresh slippages in the June quarter was Rs 16,212 crore. Kumar said he expects fresh slippages to be at Rs 63,000 crore in this fiscal, under a stressed scenario. "In March we have estimated that our fresh slippages in this year (FY21) will not go beyond Rs 63,000 crore. That is the stress test. We believe that we will end up with a lower number. That is the limit that we have set for this year, which is a number in a stressed scenario," he noted. In a baseline or normal scenario, he expects fresh slippages to be around Rs 32,000-33,000 crore in this year.
Kumar said of the term-loan book size of Rs 16 lakh crore, close to 9.5 per cent is under moratorium. He also reiterated that beyond August 31, a blanket moratorium is not required. The bank''s recoveries and upgradation were at Rs 5,769 crore. It expects Rs 10,000-11,000 crore of recoveries over the next two quarters in the large corporate accounts apart from normal recoveries. Kumar said the bank is seeing a good pipeline for sanctions. "The demand for credit from the corporates would come, I am not saying it is not coming. Even our project pipeline is more than Rs 1 lakh crore," he said. Total deposits grew at 15.96 per cent year-on-year. Credit growth stood at 6.58 per cent y-o-y, mainly driven by retail (personal) advances (12.85 per cent) and foreign office advances (11.19 per cent).
Kumar said the lender has moderated its FY21 loan growth target to 8 per cent as against 10 per cent it had earlier estimated. Capital adequacy ratio (CAR) has improved by 51 bps to 13.40 per cent as on June 2020. The bank''s scrip ended at Rs 191.45, up 2.63 per cent on the BSE on Friday.
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