Bank of Maharashtra Q2 profit surges 44% to Rs 1,327 crore

New Delhi: State-owned Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) on Tuesday posted a 44 per cent jump in its profit at Rs 1,327 crore in the second quarter ended September 2024 on account of improvement in interest income.

The Pune-based lender had posted a net profit of Rs 920 crore in the same quarter a year ago.

Total income increased to Rs 6,809 crore during the quarter under review against Rs 5,736 crore in the same period last year, BoM said in a regulatory filing.

Talking about the financial performance, BoM Managing Director Nidhu Saxena said Net Interest Margin (NIM) increased to 3.98 per cent, from 3.88 per cent in the same quarter a year ago.

Among the stack of 12 public sector banks, BoM has the highest NIM, Saxena said, adding the target for the NIM for the current fiscal is 3.75-3.85 per cent anticipating a rate cut during the course of the year.

He further said the bank expects the net profit of the bank to cross Rs 5,000 crore during the current fiscal.

In the H1, the profit has crossed Rs 2,500 crore and the trend will improve further going forward.

The bank had earned a net profit of Rs 4,055 crore in the previous fiscal.

The bank earned interest income of Rs 6,017 crore during the quarter compared to Rs 5,068 crore in the same period a year ago.

Net Interest Income (NII) grew by 15.41 per cent to Rs 2,807 crore during the quarter as against Rs 2,432 crore in the same period a year ago.

With regard to asset quality, the bank has demonstrated improvement with gross Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) moderating to 1.84 per cent of the gross loans by the end of September 2024 from 2.19 per cent a year ago.

Similarly, net NPAs or bad loans came down to 0.20 per cent from 0.23 per cent at the end of the second quarter of the previous fiscal.

Provision Coverage ratio came down marginally to 98.31 per cent, as against 98.40 per cent in September 2023.

Provisions for bad loans for the second quarter remained flat at Rs 598 crore, from Rs 597 crore earmarked for the year-ago period.

During the quarter, BoM raised Rs 3,500 crore from Qualified Institutional Placement while Rs 1,000 crore from Tier II bonds.

Following QIP, the government stake in the bank came down 79.60 per cent compared to 86.46 per cent in the previous quarter.

Asked about further stake dilution by the government, Saxena not expected during the current financial year although the bank has board approval for Rs 5,000 crore from equity sale.

With regard to Capital Adequacy Ratio, the bank said it stood at 17.26 per cent with a Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio of 11.97 per cent.

Total Business of the bank grew by 16.90 per cent basis to Rs 493,793 crore.

However, Current Account Savings Account (CASA) as percentage of total declined to 49.29 per cent from 50.71 per cent at the end of same quarter a year ago.