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Country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) on Thursday said it is aiming to post a credit growth of 19-20 per cent in the current financial year.
“The target (for credit growth) is 19-20 per cent (this fiscal), which was 18-20 per cent (last fiscal),” SBI chairman, Mr Pratip Chaudhari said.
During the last fiscal, the public sector lender had reduced its credit growth target to 16-19 per cent from an estimated projections of 19-22 per cent at the beginning of the year.
Lowering of growth targets was mainly due to lack of demand from corporates owing to economic slowdown in general.
Meantime, the loans by banks increased by over 17 per cent to Rs 47.6 lakh crore as on March 23, against Rs 40.6 lakh crore reported in the same period last year.
Referring to concern regarding bad asset, Mr Chaudhary said things are improving in the NPA (non-performing asset) front.
“Initial response has been encouraging. The NPA situation seems under control. We seem to be winning the war against NPA,” he said.
The gross non-performing asset (NPA) ratio stood at 4.61 per cent during third quarter (Q3) as against 4.19 per cent in the previous quarter (Q2).
Similarly, the net NPA ratio grew to 2.22 per cent during Q3 against 2.04 per cent reported in the previous quarter.
Net profit of the bank increased over 15 per cent to Rs 3,263 crore in the quarter ended December.
Net Interest Income (NII) of the public sector lender rose by 27 per cent to Rs 11,466 crore during this period.
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