SBI books highest-ever profit of Rs 16,884 crore

Mumbai, August 4

The nation’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) on Friday reported its highest-ever quarterly profit at Rs 16,884 crore in the April-June quarter of 2023-24 — a nearly three-fold jump over Rs 6,068 crore in the year-ago period — buoyed by a steep fall in bad loans and higher interest income.

NPAs fall to 2.76% of advances

• Total income increased to Rs 1,08,039 crore in the first quarter of 2023-24, as against Rs 74,989 crore in the same period a year ago
• The bank’s gross non-performing assets (NPA) of the total advances fell to 2.76% at June-end from 3.91% a year ago

On a consolidated basis, the bank’s net income soared more than two-fold to Rs 18,537 crore in the quarter from Rs 7,325 crore a year ago. Total income was Rs 1,32,333 crore in the period as against Rs 94,524 crore in the April-June quarter of 2022-23.

On a sequential basis, some of the key numbers such as margins and net interest income showed marginal deterioration while loan loss provisions more than doubled, leading to SBI shares tanking nearly 3 per cent on bourses. This had an upset chairman Dinesh Khare opening his earnings address, wondering aloud why the markets and analysts look only at sequential numbers.

“For a bank, the first quarter is unique as most institutions hold back pay-outs or pay-ins to the last quarter of the fiscal year. In our case in the Q4 of FY23, we had Rs 830 crore of interest income from a tax refund plus there are various other one-off gains, while in the first quarter has none of them at all.

“So a fair comparison is and should be annualised and not sequential; for other quarters I wouldn’t mind a sequential comparison,” the chairman said.