J&K Bank today reported a net profit of Rs 174 crore for the nine months ended December 2017 as the bank declared the reviewed results for the third quarter and nine months ended December 2017 subsequent to adoption of the numbers by the Board of Directors in a meeting held in Jammu today.
“I think over the past nine months we have been fairly successful in fine tuning and stabilizing our business model and today we are confident about the growth part of our balance sheet as during the first nine months we have achieved steady growth across all zones of the bank. On the NPA side the accretions have tapered off though provisioning pressure will remain for a few more quarters” the Chairman and CEO of the bank, Parvez Ahmed was quoted saying in a written statement issued post result declaration.
“The bank has achieved an incremental credit growth of 16 percent in the first nine months of the FY 17-18 which is predominantly retail within the state and highly rated corporate/PSUs in rest of India. On YOY basis our credit portfolio has grown 28 percent from Rs 45086 crore as on 31.12.2016 to Rs 57929 crore as on 31.12.2017. The bank is improving lending to productive sectors within the state as we see a large base of credit demand which remains untapped. To make the credit dispensation hassle free we are simultaneously driving the push to sourcing of new retail loans to digital channels and during the quarter being reported 30 percent of our retail loans have been processed through digital channels”, asserted the chairman.
Delineating the business numbers for the nine-month period he said, “Deposits and advances stood at Rs 73155 Cr and Rs 57929 Cr as on Dec 2017 against Rs 72463 Cr and Rs 49816 Cr as on March 2017. Aided by a better liability mix with CASA ratio of close to 50 percent the NIIM (index of profitability) has improved by 58 basis points to 3.83 percent during the first nine months. The NIIM for the 3rd quarter crossed the 4 percent mark and the cost of deposits moderated to below 5 percent level as on 31st December 2017. The NPA coverage ratio of the bank has improved to 69.51 percent from 61.73 percent a year ago.”
Lauding the support of the state government who is also the promoter of the bank Parvez Ahmed said, “We are being supported very well by the state government who has infused additional equity of Rs 532 crores to help the bank to meet the regulatory capital requirements. Also by Roll out of Chief Minister’s Business Interest Relief Scheme for all the RBI approved re-structured accounts the state government is incentivizing the restructured account holders to repay the Bank’s dues timely which shall have a salubrious effect on the repayment in restructured accounts by the affected borrowers who will have to repay their 2/3rd part of interest to avail of the 1/3rd part as incentive from the government.”