Mumbai, Nov 9: State Bank of India (SBI) today reported a moderate 12.4 per cent growth in net profit in the September quarter at Rs 2,810.43 crore, even as concerns over rising bad loans pulled down its share price by about 7 per cent.
However, on a consolidated basis, SBI reported a 48.60 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 3,470.43 crore for the July-September quarter.
The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPA) increased to 4.19 per cent of total assets as on September end, from 3.38 per cent a year ago.
“We see pressure on asset quality and provided adequately for it. Looking at the stress, there is a possibility of the gross NPA to go up”, SBI Chairman and Managing Director Pratip Chaudhuri told reporters here.
SBI, which has reported growth in profit after a gap of two quarters, has not done as well as its private sector peer ICICI Bank whose net profit went up by 22 per cent during the quarter.
SBI's provisioning of bad loans stood at Rs 4,664 crore at the end of September, an increase of 21 per cent over the corresponding period a year ago.
Shares of SBI lost over 7 per cent following announcement of the result during the intra-day trade. The scrip, later recovered some ground to close at Rs 1,862.50, down 6.76 per cent on the BSE.
Besides other factors, lowering of outlook for Indian banks by rating agency Moody's too appears to be having an impact on the share price of the largest bank in the country.
