State Bank of India has become the country's most profitable corporate with ₹14,752 crore of consolidated net income in the second quarter of FY23, beating Reliance Industries having net earnings of ₹13,656 crore.
On a standalone basis, with ₹13,256 crore of net profit, the lender has beaten the Mukesh Ambani firm which remained the most profitable corporate for decades, by a wider margin as Reliance took a hit of ₹4,039 crore in windfall tax on its exports during the quarter.
The net income of Reliance includes ₹4,729 crore from Jio Platforms and ₹4,404 crore from the retail business, both pre-tax earnings, which was marginally down from ₹13,680 crore in the year-ago period.
SBI chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara said had the bank booked treasury profits in the quarter, net income would have been much higher. He did not quantify by how much, though.
He said the bank has had notional gains on its treasury investments, which has a ₹2.85-lakh-crore of additional exposure than the mandated 19 per cent in SLR or statutory liquidity ratio. The Reserve Bank mandates all banks to invest 19 per cent of their total deposits in central government securities.
SBI consolidated net soared 66 per cent during the period under review, which was only ₹8,890 crore in the year-ago period. Total income of the SBI group rose ₹to 1,14,782 crore in the quarter from ₹1,01,143.26 crore in the year-ago period.
On a first-half basis, however, Reliance continues to be the most profitable firm with ₹31,611 crore in net as against SBI's ₹22,077 crore. Similarly, on an income basis too, Reliance leads with total revenue of ₹253,497 crore (traditionally Indian Oil and ONGC are the largest in terms of top-line), as against SBI's ₹1,14,782 crore for the period under review.
When compared to others, especially SBI's peers, the most profitable and the second largest lender HDFC Bank is way behind with a net income of only ₹11,125 crore, which rose 22.3 per cent in the quarter.
Growth
The asset quality of the bank improved with the gross non-performing assets crashing by 138 basis points to 3.52 per cent from 4.90 per cent a year ago, while net NPAs nearly halved to 0.80 per cent of the advances from 1.52 per cent in the year-ago period. As a result, provisions for bad loans declined to ₹2,011 crore from ₹2,699 crore on-year, the chairman said.
In absolute terms, the gross NPAs declined by 13.83 per cent to ₹1,06,804 crore and the net NPAs by 36.5 per cent to ₹23,572 crore.
While the bank earned an interest income of ₹79,860 crore, up 15 per cent, its interest expenses rose 16.6 per cent to ₹44,676 crore. Of the total income, the key net interest income rose 12.83 per cent to ₹35,183 crore as its net interest margin improved by 5 basis points to 3.55 per cent.
The bank's total advances rose 20 per cent in the quarter to ₹30.35 lakh crore, of which the retail (personal) loans were at ₹10.74 lakh crore, up 18.84 per cent, and retail home loans were up 14.57 per cent at ₹5.94 lakh crore. Corporate loans grew at 21.2 per cent. SME and agri loans grew 13.24 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively.