Higher interest income, interest earned on advances and treasury earnings has pro-pelled the net profit of state-run Bank of Baroda (BoB) to Rs 276.44 crore in the fourth quarter of 2007-08 against Rs 245.66 crore a year ago, a growth of 12.53%. The bank has declared a dividend of 80%.
Net profit of the bank for the entire year was at Rs 1435.52 crore against Rs 1026.47 crore in the previous year, which is a rise of 39.85%. Announcing the annual financial results, the bank?s chairman and managing director, MD Mallya, said, ?Our prime thrust in the current fiscal will be to protect the net interest margin, which stood at 2.90% for the entire year. This will be done by improving the low-cost current and sav-ings account, which is currently around 36%-38%.?
BoB witnessed a growth of 29.95% in its interest income from advances during the quarter.
However, net interest income remained flat at Rs 1,028 crore for the fourth quarter from Rs 1,044 crore during the same period in the previous year.
Cash recovery on return of account for the period was at Rs 113.21 crore from Rs 89.43 crore. Treasury income for the quarter stood at Rs 82 crore from Rs 28 crore a year ago. Total provision, including tax pro-vision, made by the bank for the quarter was at Rs 538.01 crore from Rs 498.33 crore, an increase of 7.96%.
While the interest income grew by 31.20%, interest earned on advances rose by 41.7% for the entire year. The bank?s to-tal income was up by 33.49% to Rs 13,864.51 crore for the year. On getting Basel II compliant, the bank?s capital ade-quacy ratio was at 12.94%. Net NPA was down at 0.47% from 0.60% a year ago. Total advances grew 27.6%, whereas deposits were also up by 21.7% for the entire year. Total business of the bank increased by 24.07% to Rs 2,58,735.45 crore.