There are clear signs of growth in credit offtake in the second half of the current financial year, said Rakesh Sharma, Managing Director and CEO of Lakshmi Vilas Bank.

“We staged a good performance in the second quarter, and considering the demand (for credit) in the pipeline, we are reasonably confident that our second half will be way better,” he said.

The bank reported a net profit of ₹31.5 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2014. In the comparable previous year quarter, it was ₹5.85 crore. “Of course, there was an aberration last year as the bank had to make higher provisioning of ₹58 crore for NPA, against ₹28 crore this year,” Sharma explained.

Total income for the second quarter went up 15 per cent to ₹618 crore. Total deposits grew 17 per cent to ₹19,315 crore from ₹16,455 crore in the previous year. Advances too went up by 11 per cent to ₹13,724 crore (₹12,333 crore).

Thanks to ₹10-crore sale of NPA to Asset Reconstruction Companies, cash recovery of ₹16 crore and upgradation of accounts worth ₹15 crore made during the quarter, the bank’s gross and net non-performing assets have come down. Gross NPA came down by 150 basis points from 5.22 per cent to 3.72 per cent, and net NPA came down by almost 1 percentage point to 2.78 per cent from 3.77 per cent last year. Sharma said the bank will continue to focus on retail and MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) loan portfolio, which account for 70 per cent of the bank’s total advances. The bank is also close to tie up with a leading automobile manufacturer for lending for its customers. It will also increase its exposure to housing loans. With all this, the bank hopes to post over 20-25 per cent growth for the whole year, he said.

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