Press Trust of India

Mumbai

State-owned Canara Bank on Monday reported a 74% jump in March quarter consolidated net profit to `3,336.51 crore, helped by higher core income and lower provisions.

The Bengaluru-based lender had reported a net profit of `1,918.80 crore in the year-ago period.

For FY23, its post tax profit grew to `11,254.75 crore from `6,124.83 crore in FY22. In the latest March quarter, the lender’s core net interest income grew 23% to `8,617 crore. This was due to a 17% growth in advances and a 0.14% expansion in the net interest margin to 3.07%.

Its other income grew 7% to `4,776 crore but was also hit by a 72% decline in the treasury income.

Canara Bank’s managing director and chief executive K. Satyanarayana Raju said the bank will aim to grow its overall loan book in double-digit in FY24, and denied it being a moderation, saying the lender believes in over-delivering.

Raju said the bank registered a corporate loan book expansion of over 20% in FY23, and has a sizeable pipeline of loans in various sectors like infrastructure where it is witnessing a healthy demand.

According to him, loans worth `22,000 crore have been sanctioned for various projects that are yet to start.

Contrary to some sections of the industry, which is witnessing an impact in home loan demand due to the rising interest rates, Raju said the bank is not experiencing any such trend and is aiming to better on the 14% growth observed in FY23.

Interestingly, Raju said the demand has held up well in the affordable or lower-priced loans segment, and added that it would like to increase penetration in the premium segment where the ticket size is over Rs 2 crore.

The bank reported an improvement in the asset quality with the gross non-performing assets ratio improving to 5.35% from 7.51% in the year-ago period and 5.90% three months ago.

Its overall provisions reduced to Rs 3,097.61 crore from the Rs 3,727.34 crore in the year-ago period, which helped the overall profits.

Canara Bank’s overall capital adequacy stood at 16.68% as of March 31, 2023 and Raju said it will not be needing an equity capital raise for up to the next two years.