Comments
Huge bad loan provisions, including front-loaded provisions towards accounts proceeded against under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), dragged Union Bank of India into the red.
The public sector bank reported a net loss of ₹1,531 crore in the second quarter against a net profit of ₹177 crore in the year-ago period.
Net interest income (the difference between interest earned and interest expended) in the reporting quarter (Q2 FY18) nudged up a tad to ₹2,321 crore (₹2,277 crore in the year-ago quarter).
Non-interest income was up 7 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) at ₹1,217 crore (₹1,139 crore).
Provisions towards bad loans, including 11 accounts against which IBC provisions were invoked and referred to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for resolution, jumped to ₹3,465 crore against ₹1,598 crore in the year-ago period.
Rajkiran Rai G, MD and CEO, said the bank’s board decided to front-load provisions aggregating ₹1,566 crore towards the 11 accounts (as per RBI’s first list of 12 large stressed accounts that were referred under IBC) instead of spreading the same over three quarters beginning September 2017.
The bank has an exposure of ₹7,400 crore to the aforementioned accounts. Rai said the bank will need to make ₹1,087 crore provision towards 18 accounts (loan exposure aggregating ₹4,700 crore) from the RBI’s second list of stressed assets identified for resolution under IBC either in the current quarter or the next.
Set to bounce-back Rai underscored that “provisions are peaking while slippages are coming down.”
He expects the bank to be back in the black in the January-March 2018 quarter on the back of resolution and recovery. The bank is eyeing recovery of ₹4,000 crore in FY18.
Global net interest margin edged lower to 2.08 per cent from 2.30 per cent in the year-ago quarter.
Total deposits increased 7 per cent y-o-y to ₹3,86,025 crore. Low-cost current account, savings account (CASA) deposits as a proportion of total deposits improved to 33.6 per cent as at September-end 2017 from 31.5 per cent as at September-end 2016.
Gross advances were up 11 per cent to ₹3,09,953 crore on the back of 22.5 per cent growth in retail loans, 6.8 per cent growth in MSME loans, and 4.3 per cent growth in agriculture advances.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.