Vijaya Bank shows recovery in Q2 results

[sajiv]

BANGALORE: Vijaya Bank, headquartered here, has shown a recovery in its second quarter financial results, announced here on Thursday, by wiping off a net loss of Rs. 76.64 crore made in the first quarter and posting a net profit of Rs. 79.88 crore.

Addressing a press conference here, Chairman of the bank Albert Tauro said that the bank had posted 37.2 per cent growth in net interest income.

The operating profit for the quarter had levelled off at Rs. 150.5 crore compared to Rs. 144.55 crore for the corresponding quarter of last year, he said. "We have redrawn our strategies to sustain our top line growth and improve our bottom line. Notwithstanding the liquidity constraints and the continuing volatility in the operating environment, our focus on core business has yielded improved net interest income as well as net interest margin for the quarter," said Mr. Tauro.

Mr. Tauro stated that the bank achieved 29.5 per cent year-on-year growth which helped it to reach a business volume of Rs. 89,328 crore at the end of September. While deposits moved up by 24.77 per cent to reach Rs. 52,616 crore, advances increased by 36.93 per cent to reach Rs. 36,712 crore.

Consequently, credit-deposit ratio improved to 69.77 per cent from 63.58 per cent a year ago.The bank introduced two special fixed tenure deposit schemes during the quarter to tide over the liquidity constraints and mobilised core term deposits to the tune of Rs. 1,045 crore, he said.

The bank's priority sector advances recorded 24.32 per cent growth on a year-on-year basis to reach Rs. 12,829 crore at the end of September.While agricultural advances posted 39.06 per cent growth to reach Rs. 4,194 crore, advances to medium, small and minor enterprises were of the order of Rs. 4,118 crore, signifying a year-on-year growth of 39.16 per cent. The bank registered 42.94 per cent growth under education loan, taking the portfolio size to Rs. 386.45 crore, Mr. Tauro.

Mr. Tauro said the bank wanted to achieve over 20 per cent growth in business and to reach 1,150 branch network by March 2009. The bank would also aim to focus on core and low-cost deposits so as to improve the CASA ratio, he said.