Chennai-headquartered public sector lender Indian Bank on Monday reported a 74.56% jump in its net profit to `365.37 crore for the first quarter of FY20, compared with `209.31 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal. Total income rose 14% to `5,832.11 crore from `5,131.96 crore.

Speaking to media persons after releasing the earning performance, Padmaja Chunduru, MD & CEO, attributed the good growth in the net profit to arresting of further slippage to bad loans, increased recovery and a remarkable increase in other income.

With lesser slippage, the bank’s provisioning was lower, she said, adding that this quarter the bank posted a healthy growth in all segments.

The bank could restrict fresh slippage at `1,077 crore in Q1, against `1,442 crore in the corresponding quarter last fiscal. In the other income segment, Indian Bank reported a growth of 58% to `694.54 crore from `439.78 crore.

“The bank is poised for a healthy growth further and another important aspect is that bank’s capital adequacy ratio is showing good strength, especially with the addition of `295 crore from employee stock purchase scheme,” Chunduru said.

Gross NPA of the bank was at 7.33% as compared to 7.2%, while net NPA stood at 3.84%, against 3.79%. The provision coverage ratio was at 66.34% while the slippage ratio was brought down to 2.47% from 3.83%.
Chunduru said the bank had robust growth in the RAM (retail, agriculture and MSME) sector with the retail segment growing at 24%, agriculture at 25% and the MSME at 10%. “We have a divesified loan book, with the RAM sector constituting 60%, while there has been a slight dip in the corporate sector advances,” she said.

The bank had reported a 7% increase in its overall digital transactions, with mobile banking users recording a growth of 40%. “Indian Bank has the fifth-highest mobile banking transactions among all PSU banks in India,” she said.

The total business in Q1 stood at `4.26 lakh crore, marking a growth of 14%, while deposits were at `2.41 lakh crore, registering an increase of 15%. Advances stood at `1.84 lakh crore, logging a growth of 12%.