SBI profit jumps 41pc to Rs 6,797cr in Q3 on lower provisioning

The country's largest lender SBI on Friday reported a 41 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 6,797.25 crore in the October-December quarter this fiscal compared to Rs 4,823.29 crore in the year-ago period.

Consolidated income rose to Rs 95,384.28 crore in the third quarter from Rs 84,390.14 crore in October-December 2018-19, SBI said in a regulatory filing.

On asset front, the lender showed improvement with the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) falling to 6.94 per cent of the gross advances as at December 31, 2019 from 8.71 per cent by same period in 2018. The net NPAs dropped to 2.65 per cent from 3.95 per cent.

On standalone basis, net profit jumped 41.2 per cent to Rs 5,583.36 crore in the third quarter of the current fiscal compared  to Rs 3,954.81 crore during the corresponding October-December period in the same period a year ago.

"This is also the highest ever quarterly net profit recorded by the bank," SBI said.

Income (standalone) of the bank rose to Rs 76,797.91 crore as against Rs 70,311.84 crore in same period of 2018-19.

During the quarter, the bank exercised the option of lower tax rate taking a one-time hit of Rs 1,333 crore.

"Excluding the impact of this one-time additional hit, net profit in Q3FY20 would have been Rs 6,916 crore against Rs 3,955 crore in Q3FY19," SBI said.

The provisioning for bad loans (standalone) too came down to Rs 8,193.06 crore for the third quarter of 2019-20 from Rs 13,970.82 crore parked aside for year ago period.

SBI shares were trading 2.14 per cent higher at Rs 317.35 on BSE.