Barclays India FY'14 Net at Rs 382 Crore

Barclays India said on Thursday it returned to profit in FY14 with Rs 382.14 crore of net income as against a net loss of Rs 56.38 crore in the previous fiscal.

An improvement in the cost to income ratio to 37.9 per cent from 55.8 per cent in the previous fiscal and higher revenue helped the domestic arm of the British lender get to back into the black during the reporting fiscal, its country head and chief executive Jaideep Khanna said in a statement.

He added that business sentiment has improved of late and the bank is already experiencing a meaningful pick up in transaction activity.

The bank witnessed an increase in total income to Rs 2,163.17 crore in FY14 as against the Rs 1,763.96 crore in the previous fiscal. In comparison, the operating expenses rose only marginally to Rs 509.8 crore from Rs 436.93 crore.

The bank operates in the investment banking and corporate banking verticals in the country as of now and FY'14 was the first full fiscal without the retail banking vertical, from where it retreated after suffering heavy losses.

The headcount of the bank, which retrenched some employees in the wake of the decision to move out of retail lending business, stands at 360 at present in the country, an official said.

The bank's total assets grew 5 per cent during the reporting fiscal to Rs 33,378.96 crore, even as the advances were down at Rs 8,099.97 crore as against the Rs 8,472.35 crore in FY'13.

Barclays, which sold its small business portfolio to Kotak Mahindra Bank during the past fiscal, also saw an improvement in asset quality with the net bad loans ratio improving to 1.10 per cent from 1.74 per cent.

Its total capital adequacy stood at 19.72 per cent as of March 2014, with the core tier-I at 18.99 per cent.