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Thiruvananthapuram, April 25 State Bank of Travancore (SBT) has registered 29 per cent increase in net profit in the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2009, over the corresponding period in the previous year.

The net profit during the quarter stood at Rs 192.03 crore as against Rs 149.90 crore in the previous year. The higher profit came on back of a rise in net interest income, which at Rs 328.79 crore was 31 per cent more than the Rs 250.43 crore recorded in the corresponding quarter of last year.

For the whole year of 2008-09, the bank made a net profit of Rs 607.84 crore, which represented an increase of 57.43 per cent over the previous year’s net profit of Rs 386.11 crore.

The operating profit was at Rs 1,056.27 crore as compared with Rs 709.09 crore in 2007-08.

The Board of Directors of the bank announced a dividend of 130 per cent for the year, up from 100 per cent last year.

Mr A.K. Jagannathan, Managing Director, SBT, said that the interest on advances went up by 22.23 per cent during the year, while non-interest income recorded an increase of 30.62 per cent. The net interest margin reached 3.03 per cent as against 2.59 per cent last year.

The total deposits of the bank went up by Rs 6,688 crore to Rs 42,042 crore from Rs 35,354 crore in the previous year.

The gross advances increased by Rs 4,574 crore to Rs 32,711 crore from Rs 28,137 crore in 2007-08. The total business crossed the milestone of Rs 75,000.

The earnings per share (EPS) increased to Rs 121.56 crore (Rs 10 per share) as against Rs 772.22 crore (Rs 100 per share) last year.

The shares were converted to face value of Rs 10 with effect from December 20, 2008.

The Capital to Risk Adjusted Assets Ratio of the bank stood at 14.03 per cent as against 13.53 per cent last year.

The gross NPAs were brought down from 2.01 per cent of the total advances in March 2008 to 1.65 per cent in March 2009.

The net NPAs were at 0.58 per cent, down from 0.95 per cent last year.

Mr Jagannathan said that the bank targeted total business of Rs 1 lakh crore in the current year. The bank will also open 50-60 new branches and install 200 new ATMs, apart from launching mobile banking during the year.

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