Advances shot up by 50.75 per cent from Rs 1020.38 crore in the first six months of fiscal 1999 to Rs 1538.27 crore for the first-half of the current fiscal. In fact, advances for the first-half period are even more than the full-year figure of Rs 1311.96 crore for 1999. Deposits shot up by 24.87 per cent from Rs 2306.15 crore to Rs 2879.7 crore.

Thanks to the impressive growth in advances, interest income rose by 24 per cent from Rs 137.78 crore to Rs 171 crore. The bank's focus on fee-based income has paid it well. As a result, other income rose by almost 22 per cent to Rs 22.98 crore. Its efforts to contain non-performing assets have seen a fall in provisions from Rs 6.89 crore to Rs 4.7 crore.

As a result, gross profit rose by 89 per cent to Rs 30.19 crore and profit before tax zoomed by 105.68 per cent to Rs 26.39 crore. The bank's provision for tax has seen a sharp jump from Rs 70 lakh to Rs 6.86 crore. Despite the higher tax provision, net profit shot up from Rs 12.13 crore to Rs 19.53 crore.

The current rally at the Times Bank counter has provided a profit booking opportunity to investors. On October 11, after touching a high of Rs 17.5, the stock closed the day at Rs 15.25 which was way below the day's high.The day was marked by very high volumes and as many as 5.97 lakh shares were traded during the day. Also, on October 8, around 2.51 lakh shares were traded. Times Bank is the only banking IPO in the recent past which provided an excellent return on listing.

After its listing on the Mumbai Stock Exchange in September at Rs 14.7, the stock provided a nominal return of as high as 69 per cent (based on the day's high of Rs 16.9) which is very high in a banking issue. Thanks to the first-half show of the bank, some investors should have reaped a return of upto 75 per cent.