Reduction in the cost of deposits and increase in investment income helped Corporation Bank record a 67.5 per cent growth in net profit in the first quarter of this fiscal.

It registered a net profit of ₹60.15 crore against ₹35.92 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

Jai Kumar Garg, Managing Director and CEO of the bank, said that the main focus of the bank was to reduce the cost of deposits.

Low-cost current account and savings account (CASA) deposits grew 22.70 per cent and 24.36 per cent, respectively, during the quarter. Though there was an increase of 6.25 per cent in total deposits, the interest expended on these deposits came down by 8.3 per cent. This helped give a profit boost to the bank. The bank’s cost of deposits stood at 5.93 per cent (6.85 per cent).

As regards the investment portfolio of the bank, he said the profit on sale of investments increased to ₹301 crore in Q1 against ₹159 crore in the corresponding year-ago period. Net interest income stood at ₹1,035 crore (₹1031 crore), and non-interest income rose to ₹692 crore (₹517 crore).

The gross and net non-performing assets (NPAs) of the bank stood at 15.49 per cent (11.01 per cent) and at 11.14 per cent (7.22 per cent), respectively. Corporation Bank has exposure to 11 of the 12 major accounts identified by the RBI for insolvency proceedings.

Garg said resolution of these cases, amounting to a total of ₹5,157 crore will take place in a time-bound manner, leading to a reduction in NPAs.

He said that bank made cash recoveries of ₹274.73 crore (₹96.59 crore), and received ₹71.02 crore (₹12.45 crore) from accounts that were almost written off during the quarter.

On Friday, the bank’s scrip closed at ₹46.85, up 0.97 per cent on the BSE.