News Hour- SBI Q4 net profit jumps nearly 20 times to Rs 4,050.27 crore, beats estimates

 Quarterly profit of State Bank of India , the country's biggest lender, jumped nearly 20 times on the back of a sharp drop in provisions for bad loans and strong credit demand, sending its shares up 4 percent in a subdued market. 

Loan demand in India is expected to pick up this year after the RBI cut its benchmark lending rate in April to help revive an economy that slowed to 6.1 per cent in the three months to December, the weakest annual pace in almost three years. 

The Reserve Bank of India has said it expects loans to grow by 17 per cent in 2012/13 up from 13 per cent a year earlier. 

SBI, in which the government is a majority shareholder, reported a net profit of Rs 4050 crore ($738 million) for its fiscal fourth-quarter ended March, up from Rs 209 million a year earlier. 

It set aside Rs 2837 crore for bad loans in the March quarter, nearly 13 per cent less than in the same period a year earlier, and compared with an 85 percent jump in provisions in the December quarter. 

The bank was expected to post a net profit of Rs 3600 crore, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. 

Loans grew 8.7 trillion rupees ($159 billion), up 14.5 per cent from a year earlier. 

Shares in SBI, valued at nearly $23 billion, extended gains after the results to as much as 4 per cent to Rs 1,922.85, while the broader Mumbai market was down 0.7 per cent. 

SBI, which has given loans to some of country's most troubled borrowers including Kingfisher Airlines, said its net non-performing assets stood at 1.82 per cent of total loans at the end of March from 2.22 per cent at end-December.
(Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com)