State Bank of India (SBI) on Saturday surpassed projections when it reported a profit of ₹17,035 crore for the quarter ended June 30 against ₹16,884 crore in the corresponding previous period.

Analysts were expecting the country’s largest lender to report net profits in the region of ₹16,700 crore.

Core net interest income (NII) gained nearly 5.71 per cent to ₹41,125 crore from ₹38,905 crore.

However, provisions jumped nearly 38 per cent to ₹3,449.42 crore from ₹2501.31 crore in the same quarter of the last fiscal.

During the quarter, there was an improvement in asset quality with the percentage of gross non-performing assets (NPAs) declining to 2.21 per cent from 2.24 per cent in the preceding three months. In absolute terms, NPAs stood at ₹84,226.04 crore against ₹84,276.33 crore during the same period.

At its meeting on Saturday, the Central Board of SBI approved a proposal to raise up
to ₹25,000 crore through the issue of Basel III compliant additional Tier 1 and Tier 2 bonds.

During the quarter, SBI witnessed a credit growth of 15.39 per cent at ₹38,12,087 crore against ₹33,03,731 crore in the same period of last year.

Of this, domestic corporate advances grew nearly 16 per cent to ₹11,38,579 crore from ₹9,82,184 crore, while retail loans were at ₹13,68,045 crore against ₹12,04,279 crore, marking a rise of 13.60 per cent.

Within retail loans, the amount of housing loans stood at ₹7,39,581 crore against ₹6,52,548 crore in the year-ago period.

On the liabilities front, SBI saw an 8.18 per cent rise in deposits at ₹49,01,726 crore compared with ₹45,31,237 crore in April-June 2023.

Of this, the low-cost CASA (current and saving account) deposits witnessed a growth of 2.59 per cent at ₹19,14,440 crore.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, SBI chairman Dinesh Khara said that the SBI will be able to fund the credit growth target of 15 per cent even if the deposit growth remains at the current level.

He, however, added that the bank would want to increase the deposit growth to 10 per cent.

The SBI chief observed that it will not want to compromise on NIMs (net interest margins — a key gauge of profitability) in the process while indicating that more hikes in deposit rates are unlikely.

Khara added that the first quarter is generally slow and there were “distractions” which limited the growth.

He said SBI is confident of growth picking up in the rest of the fiscal year and of achieving his aspiration of posting a net profit of ₹1 lakh crore in 2024-25.

“My ambition was to see this bank generating a profit after tax (PAT) of ₹1 trillion which I hope we will get to see by the end of FY25,” Khara, whose tenure as chairman is coming to an end, told CNBC TV18 on Saturday.

The bank had reported a net profit of ₹61,077 crore (₹0.61 trillion) in FY24.

BoI net up 10%

Bank of India (BoI) has reported a net profit of ₹1,702.73 crore against ₹1,551.07 crore in the same quarter of the previous year, a rise of 10 per cent.

During the quarter, its NII increased 6 per cent over the previous year period to ₹6,275 crore from ₹5,915 crore.

Domestic deposits rose 9.91 per cent from ₹5,89,517 crore to ₹6,47,917 crore, while domestic advances saw a growth of 17.29 per cent to ₹5,08,169 crore.