State Bank of Patiala net dips 16% in FY13

Public sector lender State Bank of Patiala (SBOP) reported 16 per cent dip in its net profit to Rs 666.76 crore for the fiscal ended March 31, 2013, on account of stressed assets and hike in employee cost.

The bank had reported a rise in net profit at Rs 796.45 crore in the previous fiscal, it said in a statement.

Bank’s gross and net NPA went up to 3.25 per cent and 1.62 per cent in 2012-13 compared to 2.94 per cent and 1.35 per cent in 2011-12, respectively, it added.

“Our absolute NPA was Rs 1,194 crore and our efforts will be to bring the net NPA by 1 percentage in this fiscal,” bank’s Managing Director Achal Kumar Gupta said here.

However, he said default in loans was not industry sector specific rather it was unit specific. “We have NPAs in corporates and agriculture,” he said.

Though bank’s employee per business rose to Rs 10.14 crore in last fiscal, the bank’s employee cost also shot up to Rs 959.49 crore in 2012-13, up from Rs 834.75 crore as on March 31, 2012, he added.

With bank having branch strength of 1,121 across the country, the State Bank of Patiala would open 100 new branches in this fiscal.

“We have plans to open 100 more branches in this fiscal in order to strengthen its presence in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and other parts of the country,” he said.

The bank also said it would aim at 20 per cent growth in overall business of the bank in 2013-14 with a focus on increasing lending to agriculture, retail and fast recovery of debt.

“We have yet to firm up a plan for current fiscal but we will aim at 20 per cent growth both in deposits and advances,” Gupta said.

The bank’s total deposits grew by 11.70 per cent at Rs 88,416 crore while advances mobilisation was up by 17.65 per cent at Rs 75,460 crore in last fiscal, he said.

“It was our conscious policy of not being aggressive in deposits (mobilisation) as we intended to lower our cost of bulk deposits which was higher last fiscal,” Gupta said when asked why the deposits growth was lower in last fiscal.

“Our focus during current fiscal will be on enhancing farm advances, retail advances and recovery of debt,” he said.

Gupta further said the bank’s priority will also be to enhance ratio of CASA (Current Account Saving Account), aimed at lowering cost of deposits. “We want to raise our CASA ratio from 25 per cent to 30 per cent in this fiscal,” he said.

Source: thehindubusinessline