Mumbai: Country's largest bank SBI on Monday reported its third quarter profit at Rs 2,479 crore, almost the same as in the corresponding period last year, days after its private sector counterpart ICICI Bank posted 13.4 per cent dip in net profits.
State-run State Bank of India, which has been aggressively going on home loan front with a special scheme of 8 per cent interest rate, saw its housing advances growing by Rs 4,930 crore in the period.
"We have seen very good credit growth in all loan portfolios. On a year-on-year basis, SBI's global advances are growing at 19 per cent, which is well above the industry average. Domestic advances have grown by 17 per cent in Q3. We should be able to reach the RBI's target (of 18 per cent loan growth)," SBI Chairman O P Bhatt told reporters here.
Homeloans contribute 13-14 per cent to SBI's total loan book. "We are approving some 2,500 crore home loans per month and distributing around Rs 1,600 crore," Bhatt said.
Auto, education and agriculture advances grew by 46 per cent, 31 per cent and 16.9 per cent respectively.
Total advances during the quarter went up to Rs 6,07,154 crore, up 19.15 per cent from Rs 5,09, 573 crore, Bhatt said.
On January 21, ICICI Bank's posted Q3 profit of Rs 1,101.6 crore, lower by over 13 per cent from the same period in the previous fiscal due to higher bad loans and weak performance in key segments.
SBI's Q3 profits stood at 2,478 crore in the same period last fiscal.
The Bank also saw its bad loans rising in the quarter and expects the trend to continue over the next two quarters, Bhatt said. But this would be under manageable levels and there are no alarming signals, he added.
Net NPAs grew to 1.88 per cent compared to 1.39 per cent a year-back while the gross NPAs escalated to 3.11 per cent from 2.5 per cent in the year-ago period.
Bhatt said the bank has Rs 75,000-crore of huge surplus liquidity and "in the next six months any hike in deposit and advances rates are unlikely even if the RBI hikes the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by up to 0.5 per cent."
As of end-December, SBI had a total deposit base of Rs 7,70,985 crore, up 11.26 per cent compared to Rs 6,92,922 crore in the year-ago period.
The bank has seen its cost of deposits declining to 5.92 per cent from 6.06 per cent as at end-September. Net interest margin improved to 2.82 per cent compared to 2.42 per cent in the September quarter.
During the quarter, SBI retired Rs 72,802-crore bulk deposits and expects to reduce another 14,000-15,000 crore wholesale deposits in the current quarter, Bhatt said.
Portion of current and savings account deposits, during the quarter, went upto 42.94 per cent from 36.58 per cent in the same period last year.
Elaborating on the Q3 business trends, Bhatt said 67 per cent of the incremental loan growth in lending during the quarter has been at sub-PLR rates, in which the share of home loans stood at 28 per cent.
Total income in the reporting quarter stood at Rs 21,145-crore as against Rs 20,305-crore in the year-ago period.
On a consolidated basis, SBI reported about 10 per cent decline in profit at Rs 3,354.94 crore for the third quarter as against Rs 3,713.66 crore in the same period previous fiscal.
SBI has a capital adequacy ratio of 13.77 per cent.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, January 26, 2010, 00:40