State-run Bank of India narrowed its losses to Rs 1,046 crore in the quarter ended March 31 from Rs 3,587 crore in the year-ago period, helped by reduction in provisions for bad loans, better recoveries, and healthy interest income.
For the full year ((FY17), the bank had reported a net loss of Rs 1,558 crore as against a net loss of Rs 6,089 crore in the fiscal ended March 31, 2015.
"We had better recoveries which was at Rs 1,597 crore. There was a growth in our net interest income and also provisions were less," newly appointed Managing Director and CEO Dinabandhu Mohapatra told reporters here today.
NII in the quarter (Q4) improved to Rs 3,469 crore, up 9 per cent from Rs 3,187 crore in the year ago period.
Net Interest Margin (NIM) on domestic operations improved to 2.80 per cent and for overseas operations it was 1.31 per cent.
Overall, the global NIM stood at 2.39 per cent as against 2.06 per cent in the same quarter last year.
The bank's asset quality worsened with gross non performing assets (NPA) at 13.22 per cent as against 13.07 per cent last year. Net NPAs, however, improved to 6.90 per cent from 7.79 per cent.
"Net NPAs have been coming down steadily on account of higher provisions. The provisions are largely on account of ageing of NPAs. We have been able to restrict our slippages compared to last year," General Manager and CFO Shanker Iyer said.
Fresh slippages were down to Rs 6,915 crore in the quarter from Rs 16,805 crore in the year-ago period.
The provisions for NPAs declined to Rs 4,484 crore in the quarter from Rs 5,442 crore.
Provision coverage ratio improved to 61.47 per cent in March 2017 from 51.14 per cent in March 2016.
The lender upgraded Rs 1,071 crore of loans in the quarter while wrote off Rs 3,983 crore.
Gross advances grew by 3.18 per cent to Rs 393,788 crore and deposits rose by 5.27 per cent to Rs 540,032 crore as on March 31, 2017.
The bank's stock tanked 11.23 per cent to Rs 158.45 on the BSE whose benchmark index closed at 30,570.97, up 0.35 per cent.
Mohapatra said the bank will now focus on resolution, recovery in NPA account and restricting fresh slippages.
"We will also be re balancing our credit portfolio. We will be moving towards retail, SME and agriculture and account below Rs 5 crore," he said.
Besides these, the bank will be looking at growing its current and savings account (Casa) and bringing in new initiatives on human resource and information and technology front.
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