SBI reports $1.2bn net profit in Q4

Bloomberg

State Bank of India (SBI), the nation’s largest lender, posted fourth-quarter profit that missed analyst estimate as bad loan provisions rise and income from businesses other than lending dropped.
Net income stood at 91.1 billion rupees ($1.2 billion) in the three months to March, the highest ever quarterly profit, compared with 64.5 billion rupees a year earlier. That lagged the average
estimate of 101.8 billion
rupees from 14 analysts in a Bloomberg survey.
The Mumbai-based lender, which controls a fifth of India’s loan market, is a key gauge for the health of the nation’s financial sector.
The State Bank of India has been focusing on building a relatively-safer retail loan book in recent years to protect the quality of its assets during the pandemic.
SBI’s gross bad-loan ratio narrowed to 3.97% at the end of March from 4.5% three months earlier. However, it set aside 32.6 billion rupees in bad loan provisions, around 5% higher than the previous quarter.
Shares of the bank rose 1.35% to 468.9 rupees in Mumbai trading, compared to a 1% rise in a gauge of 10 banking stocks.