Interest income went up by 20.44 per cent while interest expenditure moved up by 29.92 per cent. Non-interest expense, on the other hand, increased at a lower rate of 8.52 per cent. Other income, excluding profit on sale of securities, went up by 11.27 per cent.

The percentage of operating expenses to total income came down to 23.13 per cent compared with 24.60 per cent during the corresponding period of the previous year.

Deposits reported a year-on-year growth of 27.3 per cent to Rs 11,458 crore as on September 30, 1998. On a half-year basis, deposits went up by 13.3 per cent from Rs 10,115 crore in March, 1998, which is higher than the banking industry growth of 9.7 per cent. Thedeposits' market share of Dena Bank went up to 1.64 per cent from 1.58 per cent.

Advances reported year-on-year growth of 29.7 per cent, while they moved up by 15 per cent during the first six month period of 1998-99 to Rs 5,920 crore. Advances growth is higher than the banking system growth of 1.3 per cent. The bank's market share in the total advances of the banking industry moved up to 1.87 per cent from 1.69 per cent at the end of March, 1998.

Priority sector advances increased to Rs 2,391 crore from Rs 2,197 crore during the first six months of this fiscal. This amounts to 41.3 per cent of advances against the prescribed norm of 40 per cent.

The return on assets for Dena Bank increased to 0.93 per cent on an annualised basis from 0.86 per cent in March, 1998. The return on networth increased to 23.60 per cent from 21.35 per cent, while the book value of the bank share increased to Rs 27.07 from Rs 23.79. The earnings per share (EPS) increased from Rs 5.08 in March 1998 to Rs 6.39 in September,1998.