South Indian Bank Q1 Net up 10.28% at Rs 126 crore

South-Indian-BankKochi: Kerala-headquartered South Indian Bank has recorded the highest first quarter profit of Rs 126.65 crore profit in the first quarter ended June 30, registering a 10.28 percent growth on a year-on-year basis.

Announcing the first quarter results here, V A Joseph, Managing Director and CEO, said the bank's strategy of focusing on core deposits has yielded excellent results as the core deposits and CASA deposits registered impressive growth of 21.05 percent and 14.42 percent, respectively.

Total business increased by Rs 6,058 crore from Rs 75,123 crore to Rs 81,181 crore, registering a growth of 8.06 percent.

While total deposits went up by rs 2905 crore from Rs 43,584 crore to Rs 46,489 crore, total advances registered a growth of Rs 3153 crore from Rs 31,539 crore to Rs 34,692 crore.

The core deposit grew by 21.05 percent from 29,714 crore to Rs 35,970 crore and CASA of the bank crossed Rs 10,261 crore from Rs 8,968 crore constituting 22.07 percent of the total deposit.

The total income grew by 9.16 percent to Rs 1,465.84 crore during the quarter as against Rs 1,342.88 crore for the corresponding quarter, he said, adding, the growth in profit was aided by the increase in treasury profits made during the current quarter.

The bank's gross NPA and net NPA came down to 1.50 percent and to 0.91 percent, respectively as on June 30 this year following extensive measurers taken for recovery of NPAs, Joseph said. During the same period last year it was 1.57 percent and 1.12 percent, respectively.

"We were careful in identifying borrowers and had taken up monitoring and follow ups for recoveries," he said.

The bank's Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) continued to be above the regulatory requirement of 9 percent and the ratio stood at 12.32 percent and 12.19 percent under the Basel II and Basel III standards, respectively.

South Indian bank has opened 50 branches and 200 ATMs in the last fiscal to take the total number of branches to 800 and ATMs to 1,000 as on March 31 this year. The bank was targetting a total business of Rs 1 lakh crore with 850 branches and 1,250 ATMs in the current fiscal, he said. It will open branches in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim during the year, he said.

The bank also has plans to take the staff strength to 7,500 in the current fiscal from 7,376 to support its future plans. ------- PTI