Allahabad Bank plans to open 250 branches in the current fiscal, of which authorisations have been received for about 60 per cent of them.

It is also entering Dhaka by opening a branch there and work in this regard is in progress.

Second quarter performance

The bank, in a communication to the stock exchanges today, said its total business had gone up to Rs 2,74,116 crore as on September 30, 2012, compared to Rs 2,38,897 crore as at the end of Q2 of last year, marking a 14.74 per cent growth year on year.

The total deposits also moved up to Rs 1,61,967 crore as at the end of Sept 30 this year compared to Rs 1,42,043 crore in the same period last year, a 14.02 per cent growth y-o-y.

However, the bank, while registering a rise in total income in Q2 of this year to Rs 4,582.64 crore (Rs 4,202.54 crore), has seen a sharp drop in net profit. Its total expenses shot up to Rs 3,780.35 crore (Rs 3,253.24 crore). The provisioning (other than tax) and contingencies too was higher at Rs 464.47 crore (Rs 411.66 crore) and the tax expenses too more than doubled to Rs 103.62 crore (Rs 49.62 crore).

All this led to the bank’s net profit tumbling 52 per cent to Rs 234.20 crore (Rs 488.02 crore).

Consequently, the EPS for the second quarter this year slumped to Rs 4.68 (from Rs 10.25).

There was a sharp uptick in the gross and net NPA in the quarter. While the percentage of gross NPA to advances shot up to 2.95 from 1.77, the percentage of net NPA to net advances trebled to 2.10 from 0.69 in Q 2 of 2011-12. The return on net assets on an annualised basis too fell to 0.51 from 1.24.

According to Shubhalakshmi Panse, Chairman and Managing Director, Allahabad Bank, added fresh NPAs worth Rs 1,720 crore during the quarter under review, against Rs 521 crore during same period last year.

Allahabad Bank said that during the first half of the current fiscal, it opened 48 new branches, taking the total number to 2,564 branches, of which rural and semi-urban branches accounted for 61 per cent of them with the rest in urban and metropolitan areas.

Looking ahead

On its future plans, the bank said it intends to open 250 branches during 2012-13 with 153 authorisations for opening new branches on hand. It had also obtained permission to open an overseas branch at Dhaka (Bangladesh) regarding which work was in progress. It was also in the process of launching RuPay Kisan Credit Card Scheme with Smart Card enabled payment system through ATMs and PoS terminals, the statement said.

Allahabad Bank shares witnessed heavy selling of 92.36 lakh shares on the NSE by 2.55 P.M. with the stock declining by Rs 4.25 to Rs 133.50. It had touched a low of Rs 127.90 but pulled back from it. 

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