By IANS,
Kolkata : State-owned UCO Bank’s net profit rose 43.22 percent to Rs.245.8 crore in the third quarter of 2009-10 compared to Rs.171.6 crore registered in the corresponding period last fiscal, the company said Friday.
Total income increased from Rs.2,433.52 crore in the quarter ended Dec 31, 2008 to Rs.2,608.76 crore in the period under review.
The bank expects its net interest margin (NIM) at 2.5 percent in the January-March quarter of the current fiscal, up from 2.34 percent in the third quarter.
NIM is a measure of the difference between the interest income generated by banks or other financial institutions and the amount of interest paid out to clients.
“We would see our NIM going up continuously as we bring down our cost of deposits,” chairman and managing director S.K. Goel told reporters after the announcement of the bank’s third quarter results.
Goel said the major contributor to the rise in profits in the period under review was the fall in the cost of deposits to 6.62 percent from 8 percent year ago as the company had shed most of its high-cost bulk deposits.
“The share of high-cost bulk deposits has fallen from 27 percent in April to 5 percent in December,” he said.
The capital adequacy ratio (CAR) has fallen to 11.45 percent in December 2009 against 11.93 percent in March 2009.
“The CAR is expected to touch 12 percent once the government releases Rs.750 crore,” Goel said.
The bank’s advances have gone up 22.03 percent year-on-year to Rs.13,416 crore during the third quarter while deposits were up 19.78 percent to Rs.17,186 crore.