Bank of Baroda posts Rs 507 cr profit in Q4 on lower bad loans provision

(Eds: Adding details)

Mumbai, Jun 23 () State-run Bank of Baroda reported a profit-after-tax of Rs 507 crore in the March quarter, helped by lower provisioning for bad loans.

Effective April 1, 2019, the bank amalgamated Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with it. The numbers for the quarter/year ended March 31, 2020 are comparable with that of same period of the year ended March 31, 2019.

Bank of Baroda had reported a net loss of Rs 8,875 crore in the same period last year.

The provisions for non-performing loans declined by 69.23 per cent to Rs 3,190 crore as against Rs 10,368 crore in the same quarter of last year.

For the full year, the bank reported a net profit of Rs 546 crore as against a net loss of Rs 8,340 crore during FY19.

As per the filing to exchanges, the bank' standalone profit stood at Rs 506.59 crore in the January-March quarter as against a net loss of Rs 991.34 crore in the year-ago period. This number is not comparable as it does not take into account the consolidation of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank.

Domestic net interest margins (NIM) increased to 2.78 per cent from 2.68 per cent while global NIM rose to 2.67 per cent from 2.62 per cent.

Net interest income (NII) of the bank grew 5 per cent to Rs 6,798 crore from Rs 6,473 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Gross NPA stood at 9.40 per cent while net NPA was at 3.13 per cent.

Fresh slippage for the quarter stood at Rs 3,050 crore.

"In terms of slippages ratio, we do anticipate some stresses due to Covid but our current assessment is that our slippages in FY21 should be lower than in FY20," the bank's managing director and CEO Sanjiv Chadha told reporters.

Capital adequacy ratio stood at 13.30 per cent and CET-1 at 9.44 per cent as on March 31, 2020.

He said approximately 65 per cent of the bank's book was under moratorium but has come down to 55 per cent in May.

"We expect the overall moratorium to come down to 35 per cent in the quarter going ahead," he said.

There was an amount of Rs 4,053 crore which would have slipped into NPA had the standstill clause not been allowed by RBI, he said adding the bank made a 20 per cent provision on these loans.

Talking about amalgamation, Chadha said it is proceeding as per the plan.

"We are well on course to finish the amalgamation within this financial year despite the challenges posed by the lockdown due to the COVID 19 pandemic.

Its domestic deposits were up 1.8 per cent to Rs 8,08,706 crore as and domestic advances stood at Rs 5,70,341 crore.

The bank expects a deposit and advances growth of 7-8 per cent during this year, he said.

The bank's scrip ended 2.13 per cent up at Rs 50.45 apiece on BSE which closed at 35,430.43 Tuesday. HV MKJ