Canara Bank’s net profit remained flat for the September quarter at Rs 626.84 crore, a nominal decline from Rs 625.94 crore in the same period last year, as provisioning went up. Sequentially, net profit declined 22.4%.
The lender made a total provision of R999 crore for the quarter, which was 25% higher than the year-ago period. Of this, the provision for NPAs was R912 crore. The bank said its provision coverage ratio increased to 58.68% in the September quarter from 57.77% last year.
Net interest income grew 8.06% to R2,368 crore during the quarter from R2,191 crore a year ago. Sequentially, it showed a decline of 2.53% from R2,429 crore. Operating profit for the quarter was up 14.08% y-o-y at R1,626 crore.
“Gross NPAs stood at R9,164 crore, with the gross NPA ratio at 2.92% compared to 2.64% last year, despite continuing stressed scenario at the industry level,” Canara Bank said in a release. Net NPAs were at R7170 crore during the quarter with a net NPA ratio of 2.31% compared to net
NPAs of R6459 crore in the year-ago period when the net NPA ratio was at 2.30%.
Canara Bank has said that it aims to bring the gross NPA ratio to around 2% and net NPA ratio to 1.5% by the end of the fiscal.
Domestic net interest margin (NIM) improved to 2.36% from 2.33% last year and global NIM stood at 2.24% compared to 2.22% last year.
Total income grew 14.27% to R11,915 crore in the September quarter from R10,427 crore a year ago, while it grew 1.59% from R11,728 crore in the April-June stretch.
“Cash recovery during the second quarter amounted to a record R1,194 crore compared to R1,035 crore for the same quarter a year ago,” the bank said, adding that cash recovery during the first half of FY15 aggregated to R3,213 crore.