Indian Bank Q4 net down 15% at Rs 292 crore

Chennai: Indian Bank today reported 15.4 per cent fall in net profit at Rs 292.12 crore for the fourth quarter ending March 31, 2013. The city-based public sector bank’s net profit stood at Rs 345.41 crore during the corresponding period of previous year. The drop in net profit is due to higher provisioning of the bank for about Rs 390 crore, Indian Bank Chairman and Managing Director T M Bhasin told reporters here. [caption id=“attachment_768007” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Reuters[/caption] The total income of the bank for the fourth quarter ending March 31, 2013 rose to Rs 4,022.46 crore from Rs 3,498.02 crore registered during the same period of previous year. For the full fiscal period ending March 2013, its provisioning stood at Rs 704 crore for pension and towards NPA (non-performing assets). For the financial year ending March 31, 2013, the net profit slipped by 9.43 per cent to Rs 1,581.85 crore from Rs 1,746.59 crore registered in the year ago period. Total income of the bank during the 2012-13 fiscal grew to Rs 15,186.20 crore as against Rs 13,422.43 crore in 2011-12. Bhasin said at the Board meeting today, the bank has recommended a dividend of 66 per cent for the period ending March 31, 2013. The total business of the bank rose by 17.52 per cent to Rs 2,49,136 crore for the period ending March 31, 2013. The total deposits stood at Rs 1,41,980 crore while gross advances grew to Rs 1,07,156 crore, he said. The Net Interest Margin has been maintained above 3 per cent and return on average assets was at 1.02 per cent.        Declaring the current financial year as the “Year of Retail and Recovery” for the bank, Bhasin said the net worth of the bank grew to Rs 10,838.84 crore from Rs 9,637.41 crore registered during the period ending March 31, 2012.     Responding to a query, Bhasin said that the bank would take a call on raising Tier-II capital of about Rs 1,000 crore during second or third quarter of this financial year. The bank has opened 143 branches during the fourth quarter of 2012-13 taking the total to 2,089 branches. The bank has three branches in Singapore, Colombo and Jaffna. PTI