MUMBAI: Kotak Mahindra Bank, which is in the process of absorbing ING Vysya Bank with itself, posted 22 per cent increase in its net profit to Rs 716 crore for the three months ended December 31, compared with Rs 591 crore a year earlier.
The bank’s total income rose to Rs 5,323 crore in the last quarter from Rs 4,424 crore a year back as loans grew 22 per cent to Rs 64,641 crore and other income increased to Rs 1,925 crore from Rs 1,430 crore. A positive and redeeming feature of the quarter’s performance was decline in contingencies and provisions to Rs 42 crore from Rs 63.85 crore. Speaking to reporters, Jaimin Bhatt president and group chief financial officer of the bank, said the bank’s CASA grew 42% to a level of 32% and the bank maintained a healthy capital adequacy of 17.7%.
Yet, the outlook remained a bit muted with bank officials saying they didn’t immediately see much of a loan growth. It was still early days regarding a pickup in loan by retail borrower, while there was still some demand from commercial or corporate borrowers.
The bank’s bad and doubtful loans declined slightly to 1.58 per cent of its advances compared with 1.68 per cent a year earlier. The bank didn’t sell any bad loans to asset reconstruction companies during the quarter. It has provision coverage ratio on non-performing assets at 56.82 percent.
Its proposed merger with ING Vysya Bank is awaiting regulatory clearances including that from the Competition Commission of India even as shareholders of both the banks have given their green signal. KMB scrip gained 0.52% to close at Rs 1,396.25 a piece on the BSE, whose benchmark index Sensex surged 1.85 per cent to hit a life-time high on Tuesday.