State Bank of Travancore Q4 net falls 68% to Rs 62 crore

State Bank of Travancore (SBT) has reported a 67.6% decline in its net profit to Rs 62 crore in the fourth quarter ended March due to a sharp increase in provisioning for bad loans.

The bank had reported a net profit of Rs 192.9 crore in the same quarter a year ago.

Its total income in the quarter under review grew 3.64% to Rs 2,801.7 crore as against Rs 2,703.18 crore in January-March of 2014-15.

SBT's total provisioning in the quarter against bad loans grew by over five-fold to Rs 520.32 crore compared with Rs 92.21 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2014-15.

The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at 4.78% of total advances as against 3.37% a year ago. Net NPAs came in at 2.77% of total advances as against 2.04% in the year-ago period.

For the whole of 2015-16, SBT's net profit stood at Rs 337.73 crore, as against Rs 335.52 crore a year ago.

In a separate filing, State Bank of Travancore said its board of directors has declared a dividend of Rs 5 per share for 2015-16.

At 1254 hours, the stock of State Bank of Travancore was trading 2.03% down at Rs 391.80 on BSE.