UCO Bank suffers loss of Rs 1,715 crore in Jan-Mar 2016 quarter

New Delhi: State-owned UCO Bank today reported a net loss of Rs 1,715.1 crore for the March quarter on account of surge in bad loans. The bank had posted a net profit of Rs 209.2 crore in the January-March quarter of 2014-15, UCO Bank said in a statement. [caption id=“attachment_1265243” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Tough time for public sector banks. Reuters[/caption] Total income declined to Rs 4,745.4 crore in the quarter under review as against Rs 5,263.3 crore a year-ago. As far as asset quality is concerned, the gross NPAs as a percentage to total advances rose significantly to 15.43 percent in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal as against 6.76 percent in the same period a year ago. Its net NPAs also increased to 9.09 percent from 4.30 percent at the end of March 2015. As a result, provisions other than tax and contingencies increased to Rs 2,344.8 crore during the quarter compared with Rs 968.38 crore in the year-ago period. NPAs over 10 percent may prompt RBI to initiate “prompt corrective action” with the view to improve internal processes to deal with bad loans. For the entire 2015-16, the bank reported a loss of Rs 2,799.2 crore. It had posted a profit of Rs 1,137.8 crore in the previous fiscal. The total income declined to Rs 20,157.2 crore during the fiscal as against Rs 21,362.5 crore in 2014-l5.