Continuing its war on bad loans, public sector lender United Bank of India is aiming to trim its gross non-performing assets to R5,500 crore by this fiscal end ? bringing it down by more than R1,600 crore through recovery and upgradation.
The Kolkata-based bank?s gross NPAs stood at as high as R7,118 crore, or 10.47% of total advances, at the end of FY14, although it made an unprecedented reduction of R1,427 crore during Q4FY14.
Significantly, its gross NPAs to gross advances during the third quarter of FY14 had jumped to 10.82% to R8,545.50 crore. On the back of a strong bad loan recovery performance, the lender reported a net profit of R469.37 crore for the March quarter after posting losses in previous quarters.
?We will continue to focus on cutting down our stressed assets. We are aiming to reduce the gross NPAs to R5,500 crore by the end of FY15,? United Bank executive director Deepak Narang told FE.
Narang said the bank would bring down its bad assets through both recovery and upgradation. The bank?s total recovery of bad loans had reached a record high of R2,592.13 crore for the fourth quarter of FY14. Cash recovery during the period stood at R645.41 crore, while upgradation of NPAs to standard assets touched R1,488 crore.