Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. Buoyed by robust loan sales, higher interest income and lower provisions, the leading Public Sector Bank State Bank of India has reported the highest-ever quarterly profit at Rs 13,265 crore, which is 74 per cent more year-on-year, for the September quarter of FY23. The country's largest lender said its total income increased to Rs 88,734 crore during the quarter under review from Rs 77,689.09 crore a year ago. The key net interest income rose 13 per cent to Rs 35,183 crore from Rs 31,184 crore.

One-fourth income came from investment gains

Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara told reporters during the earnings conference at the bank's headquarters and said that of the total income, more than one-fourth or Rs 24,400 crore came from investment gains, though the bank has not booked profit from government securities in which it holds an additional exposure of over Rs 3.85 lakh crore. As the bank nearly passed on the entire rate by the central bank to borrowers as well as depositors, its domestic net interest margin improved to 3.55 per cent from 3.50 per cent earlier. As a result, provisions for bad loans declined to Rs 2,011 crore from Rs 2,699 crore on-year, the chairman said.

2nd quarter was a busy season- Chairman

Explaining the reason for the record loan sales, the chairman said the second quarter was a busy season, "that is why we had a strong credit growth. But I still expect going by the current trend, we should have credit growth of 14-16 per cent in the current financial year. Our corporate book has a loan pipeline of Rs 2.4 lakh crore of which Rs 1.27 lakh are pending for disbursals". He said the corporate book growth of 21.2 per cent in Q2 was led by funds for capital expenditure which constituted around 40 per cent of the total disbursal of Rs 9.2 lakh crore, and working capital loans constituting the rest. There has been hardly any refinance demand, he said.