DCB Bank Q1 profit down 2.5% to Rs 79 crore

DCB Bank on Saturday posted a marginal decline of 2.5 percent in net profit at Rs 79 crore for the first quarter of the current financial year. The private sector lender registered a net profit of Rs 81 crore in April-June, 2019-20.

During the quarter under review, the bank made an overall provision of Rs 85 crore, it said in a release. Of this, Rs 32 crore was additional COVID-19 provision while Rs 13 crore was regular NPA provision.

"The bank already holds a provision of Rs 63 crore for COVID-19 as on March 31, 2020 taking the total to Rs 95 crore as on June 30, 2020. This is considered adequate and above minimum regulatory requirements," it added.

As on June 30, 2020, the bank had a floating provision of Rs 99 crore and standard assets provision of Rs 121 crore.

Total income of the bank in the quarter also fell by 2 percent to Rs 384 crore from Rs 392 crore in the year-ago same period, it said.

Interest income, however, was up 1 percent at Rs 307 crore during the quarter as against Rs 305 crore earlier.

At June-end 2020, the net restructured standard advances stood at Rs 469 crore (commercial vehicle Rs 239 crore, mortgage Rs 147 crore, SME/MSME Rs 65 crore, corporate Rs 11 crore and others Rs 7 crore), the bank said.

The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPAs) rose to 2.44 percent of the gross advances as on June 30, 2020, from 1.96 percent by June 2019, while the net NPA increased to 0.99 percent from 0.81 percent.

"NPAs are likely to increase once the moratorium period ends on August 31, 2020. The bank intends to support its customers within the guidelines in order to cope with the COVID-19 stress. The bank intends to make provisions higher than regulatory minimum on a consistent and prudent basis," DCB Bank said.

The provision coverage ratio as on June 30, 2020 was at 75.2 percent.

"The lockdown disruptions are slowly reducing. We have to be cautious. We are concentrating on collections and recoveries, implementing the guarantee scheme, home loans, gold loans and Agri related loans.

"As part of the strategic cost management, we are accelerating our digital agenda in order to achieve long-term cost efficiencies," said Murali M Natrajan, Managing Director & CEO, DCB Bank.