Kerala-headquartered South Indian Bank has registered a 40 per cent growth in NRI remittances during the first half of the current fiscal.
Briefing media persons after the board meeting here this morning, the bank Chief Executive V.A. Joseph said that the NRI remittances crossed the Rs 7,000-crore mark for the first time this year.
“Favourable rate of return on investment coupled with the depreciating rupee became a huge attraction for the NRIs to park their funds here. While this was not totally unexpected, we can’t expect the remittances to grow at the same speed in the coming quarters,’’ he told Business Line.
The bank has reported a 30.5 per cent growth in net profit for the quarter ended September 30, 2013.
“By maintaining our net interest margin at over 3 per cent and strategically managing the portfolio mix of liabilities, we managed to achieve such growth in our profits. We will strive to improve our growth momentum in the coming quarters,’’ he said.
Biz growth
Total business grew 12.67 per cent to Rs 75,610 crore from Rs 67,110 crore. Net NPAs increased to 1.39 per cent (0.86 per cent).
“This was on account of the stress in 2-3 corporate accounts and the fact that we did not grow our advances aggressively this year. The base has remained small,’’ he said.
(Advances grew 12.27 per cent from Rs 28,620 crore as at end September 2012 to Rs 32,132 crore at the end of the just-ended quarter).
Retail loans
The bank is concentrating on retail loans, which account for about 45 per cent of the total advances, Joseph said.
To a query on gold loans, he said: “It is the best form of advance as the recovery is excellent.’’
Gold loans at present account for 20 per cent of SIB’s total advances. The bank is targeting to increase it to 25 per cent by the end of the year.