SBI Q4 net profit up 46 per cent at Rs 2,742.31 cr

The bank has put in place a slew of measures for the recovery of NPAs

During the quarter under review, its  total income rose to Rs 22,060.61 crore from the comparable quarter of the previous fiscal at Rs 16,393.93 crore. 

Its operating profits rose to Rs 5,277.05 crore from Rs 4,373.13 crore in the quarter ended March 31, 2008, on year-on-year (YOY) basis.

For the full year of 2008-09, SBI posted a net profit of Rs 9,121.24 crore as compared with Rs 6,729.12 crore for the previous fiscal. During this period, total income of the Bank rose from Rs 57,645.24 crore to Rs 76,479.22 crore.

Further, SBI has declared a dividend of Rs 29 per share (290 per cent) for the year ended March 31,2009.

It has posted a capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of 14.25 per cent, while net-NPA (non performing assets) stood at 1.76 per cent versus 1.78 per cent YOY.  The Bank’s provisions has come down by 14.91 per cent to Rs 1,377.66 crore from Rs 1,619.14 crore on year-onyear basis.

Its other income rose to Rs 4,718 crore as against Rs 2,817.2 crore and net interest income (NII) to Rs 4,841.9 crore from Rs 4,800.59 crore grew just 0.86 per cent. As per the Consolidated results, the Group has posted a net profit after minority interest of Rs 10,955.28 crore for the fiscal 2009 as compared to Rs 8960.61 crore for the fiscal 2008. Total Income increased from Rs 90,218.81 crore for FY’08 to Rs 1,13,093.09 crore for FY’09.

Pegs 25% growth

Meanwhile, briefing reporters in Kolkata, Chairman O P Bhatt said the bank expects to grow by 25 per cent in the current financial year. “While we plan to further consolidate on our overseas operations, we’ve pegged a growth target of 25 per cent in 2009-10,” Bhatt said.

Explaining the factors behind the rise in the net, he said besides treasury operations, there had been a robust growth in interest income on advances and non-fund based income. However, the overhang of the liquidity being there, the bank had to make a huge provisioning for pension scheme payout to the extent of Rs 1,800 crore.

“There was a time last year when the bank had huge liquidity, resulting in higher cost of deposit and lesser yield on advances and PLR(prime lending rate) declined by 150 bps(basis points). However, the scenario has changed now and cost of deposit is gong down gradually,” Bhatt explained.

To a question, he conceded that the bank’s credit-deposit ration went down.” We can’t drastically reduce the deposit rates. In order to restore parity, we’ve introduced a whole range of new products covering SME,agri and other sectors which have been showing good off-takes,” he said.

Secondly, a slew of measures has been put in place for upgradation and recovery of NPAs which would see the bank netting close to Rs 7,000 crore this year, the SBI chairman said.

Asked whether the bank plans to go ahead with the merger scheme after successful merger of Bank of Sourastra, Bhatt stressed that the bank `is keen to implement it as merger brings in greater synergy, scale and size in operations.” However, unless the government gives the necessary nod, the bank cannot proceed in this respect.

Talking about the overseas operations, he said the bank would adopt a policy of further consolidation of operations without venturing into new countries for the time being.
“ We’re keen to ride on the growth of the Indian business wherever there is significant concentration of NRI population. We also have plans to develop new products for local retailing in such markets as Singapore and Indonesia,” he said. SBI is currently present in 33 overseas locations.