Uco Bank on Saturday reported 50.87% year-on-year jump in its net profit to Rs 156.20 crore for the quarter ended September 30 from Rs 103.53 crore for the same period a year ago, on the back of strong treasury gains and a reduction in total provisions.
The lender’s asset quality during the quarter, however, deteriorated with the NPAs in absolute term rising by 64% y-o-y to Rs 12,226.66 crore as some large accounts slipped into bad loans category. Net interest income of the bank saw 2.38% y-o-y rise at Rs 1,416 crore for the July-September period, while the bank recorded a profit of Rs 273 crore in treasury operations during the period, up by 133% y-o-y. Other income during the period under review grew 14.5% y-o-y at Rs 411 crore. Net interest margin at the end of second quarter stood at 2.45%.
UCO Bank MD and chief executive officer RK Takkar said although provisioning for NPAs has increased during the period, other provisions have reduced due to new RBI guidelines, leading to a dip in total provisions. While the bank’s provisioning for NPAs rose by 116.83% y-o-y at Rs 863 crore, the total provisions dipped by 2.35% to Rs 913.27 crore.
Takkar said some large accounts, which were facing difficulties, contributed to the fresh slippages and over 24% of that were from restructured category. The maximum slippages were in infrastructure, real estate and pharmaceutical industries, he added.