State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest lender, reported a 66 percent fall in its fourth quarter standalone net profit to Rs. 1,264 crore due to a 143 percent spike in provisioning for bad loans. The Mumbai-based, government-owned bank's net profit was Rs. 3,742 crore in the corresponding quarter in 2014-15.
SBI had to more than double the provisioning for bad loans to Rs. 12,139 crore for the March 2016 quarter from Rs. 4,985 crore in the year-ago period, according to a regulatory filing by the bank with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Friday.
The bank's net interest income stood at Rs. 15,291 crore for the quarter, up 3.93 percent from Rs. 14,172 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2015.
Net non-performing assets (NPAs) climbed 113 percent to Rs. 55,807 crore as of March 31, 2016 from Rs. 27,590 crore at the end of the preceding financial year. NPAs stood at Rs. 40,249 crore at the end of the third quarter.
As a percentage of total advances, net NPAs rose to 3.81 percent from 2.12 percent as on March 31, 2016.
The sharp rise in provisioning for bad loans is the outcome of an asset quality review (AQR) of banks conducted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to identify specific accounts that banks should earmark as NPAs over two quarters ended March 2016. The banks have been given a deadline of March 2017 to clean up their books.
The bank declared a dividend of 260 percent for the financial year 2015-16.
The SBI stock was trading at 189.95 on the BSE at around 3.05 p.m., up 3.37 percent from its previous close.
SBI is the leader of the consortium that has an exposure of about Rs. 9,000 crore to Vijay Mallya's now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
