NPAs, provisions see Canara Bank Q1 net dip 28.37%

It had clocked a net profit of Rs 1,013.37 crore in the same period of 2010.  Briefing reporters, Chairman & Managing Director S Raman attributed three reasons for sharp fall in bank’s profit.  He said lower net profit during the quarter was on account of increase in provision on non-performing assets to the tune of Rs 285 crore as per RBI norms. Likewise, there was also reversal of interest of Rs 210 crore due to slippages with bank shifting to system driven NPA recognition and dip in trading profit of Rs 300 crore due to rising G-Sec yield.

Without additional provisions on NPA, reversal of interest on account of system driven NPA recoginition and trading profit, comparable net profit, he claimed, works out to Rs 1,521 crore with year-on-year growth of 50.2 per cent.

However, switching over had paid rich dividends Raman said, pointing out the bank was able to effect handsome recovery of Rs 750 crore during the quarter as against Rs 400 crore in the same period previous fiscal. “There was a problem and we have done the clean up of our portfolios,” he said. The increase in NPAs, he said, was due to migration to system based NPA recognition of above Rs 2 lakh. The bank, he said, has restructured 2,562 accounts worth Rs 419.5 crore during the quarter.

He said, bank’s exposure to micro-finance institutions was only Rs 5 crore besides limited exposure to commercial real estate. The main pain points of gross NPAs was MSMEs (Rs 1,148 crore) and agriculture (Rs 835 crore), he added. The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) rose to 1.67 per cent during quarter to Rs 3,606 crore from 1.46 per cent (Rs 2,549 crore) in the same quarter year ago. The net NPA ratio stood at 1.34 per cent (Rs 2,871 crore) as at June 2011.

The bank’s total income increased by 30.8 per cent during the period to Rs 7,707.5 crore from Rs 5,894.8 crore in the corresponding year-ago period. The interest income of the bank rose to Rs 7,180.7 crore during the reporting quarter from Rs 5,160.8 crore in the first quarter of previous fiscal.