Karnataka Bank Ltd registered a net profit of ₹31.36 crore during the fourth quarter of 2020-21 as against a net profit of ₹27.31 crore in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, recording a growth of 14.83 per cent.
The board of directors of the bank, which met on Wednesday, approved the audited annual financial results for the period ended March 31 and also recommended a dividend of 18 per cent to be approved in the ensuing 97th annual general meeting.
The bank registered a net profit of ₹482.57 crore for 2020-21 as against ₹431.78 crore in 2019-20, recording a growth of 11.76 per cent.
Terming the annual result as the best result during tough conditions triggered by the pandemic, Mahabaleshwara MS, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank, said this clearly demonstrates the resilience of the bank.
The all-time high annual net profit, the highest ever CRAR of 14.85 per cent, very satisfactory PCR of 70.05 per cent, a new high of 31.49 per cent in CASA, over 90 per cent digital transactions, moderation in NPAs, etc., all indicate that economic prescription of the bank for Covid era – ‘Conserve, Consolidate and Emerge Strong’ – has provided the much-required immunity, he said.
Also read: Karnataka Bank gets additional director
The retail and mid-corporate advance, which has been the focus areas of the bank as part of its credit realignment initiative, has registered a growth of 6.34 per cent. The overall credit portfolio has seen negative growth as there was a degrowth of 53.44 per cent under the large corporate sector.
He said the ratio of retail, mid-corporate, large corporate has improved to 52.98 per cent, 33.79 per cent, 13.23 per cent as against 45.49 per cent, 28.71 per cent, 25.80 per cent as of March 2020.
“Even though we have been successful in overcoming the adverse impact of the pandemic under wave 1.0, we will continue to be ‘cautious and conservative’ in handling wave 2.0 as well, by keeping intact all our efficiency maximisation efforts,” he said.
‘Economic vaccines’
Various ‘economic vaccines’ such as restructuring, guaranteed emergency credit line, etc., being rolled out by the RBI and the Government would definitely help the needy borrowers and the banking industry alike to effectively overcome the challenges in a resilient way, he said.
Stating that the non-performing assets (NPA) have also moderated, he said the gross NPAs of the bank stood at ₹2,588.41 crore constituting 4.91 per cent as of March 31, 2021 as against ₹2,799.93 crore constituting 4.82 per cent as on March 31, 2020.
The net NPAs also moderated to ₹1,642.10 crore constituting 3.18 per cent from ₹1,755.01 crore as on March 31, 2020 constituting 3.08 per cent. Even though both the gross NPAs and net NPAs amounts have come down, the marginal increase in percentage term is mainly on account of denominator effect, he said.