The Hindu Business Line : Allahabad Bank H1 profit doubles

ALLAHABAD Bank proposes to go slow over booking profits from treasury operations in the second half of the current financial year (2002-03). In the second half of 2001-02, the bank had booked over Rs 120 crore of profit from treasury operation as compared to Rs 64 crore in the first half.

In the first half of the current financial year, the profit from treasury operations amounted to Rs 74 crore.

Dr B. Samal, CMD of Allahabad Bank, while briefing newspersons about the performance of the bank in the first half, exuded optimism over the probable surge in credit off-take in the second half. In the first half, the credit off-take improved by 7.3 per cent, total advances amounting to Rs 12,672 crore as on September 30, 2002, as compared to Rs 11,815 crore as on March 31, 2002. In the corresponding period of last year, the credit growth was 2.1 per cent.

The retail credit was projected to increase substantially. Between April and September this year, the retail credit of the bank increased by 34 per cent through its 254 retail boutiques. The number of boutiques was targeted to reach 300 by March 31, 2003.

During the period under review, the net profit of the bank increased to Rs 64.51 crore as compared to Rs 30.41 crore in the same period of the last year. The profit would have been much higher but for higher provisioning for NPAs. The provisioning had been stepped up to 45 per cent (41 per cent).

The net NPAs to net advances declined to 8.66 per cent on September 30, 2002 from 10.57 per cent on March 31, 2002. In absolute amount, the drop was to the tune of Rs 211 crore. The target for the current year was to achieve a total reduction of about Rs 500 crore. However, during the first-half, new NPAs amounting to Rs 100 crore were added.

Judging by the present trend, the current financial year should end up with a higher net profit than last year's Rs 80 crore, Dr Samal added.

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