SBI standalone net profit at Rs 2,005 cr, NPA shoots up

  Mumbai, August 11 (IANS) The State Bank of India (SBI) on Friday said its standalone net profit went down to Rs 2,005.53 crore during the first quarter of the 2017-18 fiscal.   In a regulatory filing in BSE, the bank said it has posted a net profit of Rs 2,005.53 crore, down from Rs 2,520.96 crore on a standalone basis, for the quarter ended June 30.   The bank in a statement said the net profit for the period under review zoomed by 436 per cent for the period under review from Rs 374 crore posted during the previous year corresponding period by aggregating the historical audited numbers of erstwhile associate banks, Bharatiya Mahila Bank and its own for comparison purposes.   Going by the regulatory filing, SBI during the first quarter of the current fiscal, earned a total income of Rs 62,911.08 crore, up from Rs 48,928.60 crore during the same period in the 2016-17 fiscal.   The bank's provisions against bad loans shot up to Rs 12,125.26 crore for the period under review, up from Rs 6,339.56 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2016.   This in effect has dragged down the bank's net profit to Rs 2,005.53 crore.   The country's largest mortgage lender's gross non-performing assets (NPA) shot up to Rs 188,068.49 crore as of June 30, as against Rs 101,541.18 crore on June 30, 2016.   The net NPA as on June 30, 2017 stood at Rs 107,759.66 crore up from Rs 57,420.98 crore as on June 30, 2016.   On the progress of the merger Chairperson of SBI Arundhati Bhattacharya told reporters that during the quarter under review 594 branches have been merged till August 6, 2017 and the entire branch merger process is expected to be completed by September 2017.   According to SBI, the total number of branches as on date including the merged banks stands at 23,423.   She said 8,616 employees will be deployed on sales function on account of rationalisation of staff.   The bank said 3,569 employees were paid a sum of Rs 473.4 crore under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) implemented to have a balanced age profile of employees.   The VRS is expected to save the bank around Rs 400 crore per year, the bank said in an analyst presentation.   She said rationalisation of branches would result in an annual saving of Rs 1,160 crore for the bank over a period of time.   On the NPA slippages, Bhattacharya said that the slippage ratio was at 5.87 per cent in FY17 is down in first quarter. It is expect to come down to 3.3 per cent in FY18.   According to her the operating expenses controlled well, up only by 3.72 per cent in Q1 year-on-year (YoY).   The SBI's scrip came down to Rs 280.65 on BSE after touching an intra-day high of Rs 302.80.