RBL Bank Ltd.'s profit for the March-ended quarter met estimates due to strong growth in advances from its retail and mid-corporate segments.
Net profit rose 38.8 percent rose to Rs 247.18 crore from last year, the private lender said in an exchange filing. That compares with the Rs 246-crore consensus estimate of the analysts tracked by Bloomberg.
The lender's bottomline was aided by 35 percent growth in advances, with the wholesale loan book growing 25 percent and non-wholesale loan portfolio expanding 49 percent on a yearly basis.
Net interest income, or the core income, grew 47.6 percent year-on-year to Rs 738.72 crore, beating the Rs 699-crore estimate.
“Our key pillars of growth—micro banking, cards, loan against property (on the retail lending side) and on the wholesale side, an increase in the importance and relevance in the large corporate space—contributed handsomely in this quarter,” Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Vishwavir Ahuja told BloombergQuint in a post-earnings conversation.
Important Highlights
- Net non-performing assets ratio was 0.69 percent against 0.72 percent in the previous quarter.
- Provisions for bad loans increased 24.4 percent sequentially to Rs 199.97 crore.
- Cost to income ratio at 51.22 percent versus 52.85 percent in the last quarter.
The increase in the provision coverage is in line with the bank's strategy, Ahuja said in a press conference, noting that the bank had provided for the impact of demonetisation spread over the four quarters in the reported earnings.
Ahuja said that he expects the bank's Current Account Savings Account ratio to improve overtime, even as the industry witnesses a weak CASA growth. “Our CASA percentage, on a fast-growing balance sheet, has increased quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year. We expect, for various reasons, [that] our CASA percentage will continue to grow.” RBL Bank reported a 70-basis points improvement in the CASA ratio on yearly basis.
RBL Bank's board of directors also proposed a dividend of Rs 2.7 per share, as compared with Rs 2.1 per share last year, awaiting approval from the members at the annual general meeting.
Shares of the private lender closed at Rs 678.2 on the S&P BSE Sensex.
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