Bank of Baroda (BoB) on Saturday posted an 88 per cent rise in standalone net profit for the first quarter ended June 30 following a strong growth in its core income and non-interest revenues.

The state-owned lender clocked a net profit of Rs 4,070.07 crore against Rs 2,168.13 crore in the same period of the previous year.

This came on the back of a 24.4 per cent rise in net interest income (NII - interest earned minus interest expended) to Rs 10,997 crore from Rs 8,838 crore in the year-ago period.

BoB added that the sustained NII growth can be attributed to growth in global advances of 18 per cent over the previous year, coupled with traction in net interest margin, which rose 25 basis points over the previous year at 3.27 per cent.

Non-interest income, which includes trading gains or profit from sale of investments, forex income, income from commission and brokerage, rose to Rs 3,322 crore from Rs 1,182 crore a year ago.

BoB also saw an improvement in its asset quality with the ratio of gross non-performing assets (NPAs) to gross advances declining to 3.51 per cent from 3.79 per cent on a sequential basis, while the level of gross NPAs in absolute terms fell to Rs 34,832.16 crore from Rs 36,763.68 crore over the same period.

Debadatta Chand, managing director & CEO, BoB, said the bank was targeting an overall loan growth of 14-15 per cent for the current fiscal within which the corporate book is likely to grow 12-13 per cent, while the retail portfolio is forecast to rise by 18-20 per cent. International lending is expected to clip at 15 per cent.

While the period saw the lender’s fresh slippages rising marginally to Rs 2,452 crore from Rs 2,242 crore in the preceding three months, BoB said while they are from a few corporate and retail accounts, it has been successful in keeping a lid on fresh bad loans.

PSB net dips 25%

The Punjab & Sind Bank on Saturday reported a 25 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 153 crore for the June 2023 quarter, partly due to the provision of wage revision and fresh slippages.

The lender had reported a net profit of Rs 205 crore in the April-June quarter of 2022-23.

Total income increased to Rs 2,494 crore in the first quarter of 2023-24 against Rs 1,915 crore a year ago.

During the quarter, the bank earned an interest income of Rs 2,316 crore compared with Rs 1,800 crore in the year-ago period.

Explaining the reason for the decline in profit, Punjab & Sind Bank managing director Swarup Kumar Saha said the bank has made a Rs 57 crore provision towards the wage revision under negotiation and Rs 450 crore in fresh slippages, including a mid-corporate of Rs 92 crore in the quarter.