Canara Bank to maintain 80-83% investment in HTM category, says ED Debashish Mukherjee

Canara Bank

State-owned lender, Canara Bank is likely to maintain 80-83 percent of portfolio of investment in held-to-maturity (HTM) category, executive director Debashish Mukherjee said in post-earnings media conference on May 8.

“We have around 83 percent portfolio in HTM, we propose to continue with that even during this new regime because that will give us certain advantages in falling rate regime,” Mukherjee said in response to a Moneycontrol query.

In the January-March quarter, HTM to investment stood at 80.55 percent, which was lower than 82.67 percent in the previous quarter and 83.71 percent in the year-ago period.

The lender has Rs 2.91 lakh crore in HTM category, the bank said during an  investor presentation.

Total gross investment of the bank stood at Rs 3.64 lakh crore as on March 31, against 3.49 lakh crore in the previous quarter and Rs 3.24 lakh crore last year.

In the SLR category, the state-owned lender held Rs 3.24 lakh crore in the March waurter, which was higher than Rs 2.84 lakh crore last year.

Canara Bank reported an 18.4 percent rise in its net profit to Rs 3,757.23 crore in the fourth quarter on better asset quality and an increase in net interest income.

Bross non-performing asset (NPA) ratio of the bank improved to 4.23 percent from 5.35 percent in the year-ago period. Net NPA ratio stood at 1.27 percent  against 1.73 percent in the previous year.

Net interest income, the difference between the interest earned and paid, stood at Rs 9,580 crore, up 11.18 percent from the year-ago quarter.

Net interest margins stood at 3.07 percent, same as last year but a tad better from the previous quarter.