United Bank of India reports Q2 net profit as bad loans fall substantially

State-owned United Bank of India reported a net profit of Rs 123.88 crore in the second quarter ended September 30, on the back of substantially lower dud loans, leading to lower provisioning requirement.

The Kolkata-headquartered bank had posted a net loss of Rs 883.17 crore in the July-September period of 2018-19.

Sequentially, there was a net profit of Rs 105 crore in the first quarter ended June this year.

The lender's total income rose to Rs 3,013.74 crore in the September 2019 quarter, compared with Rs 2,600.47 crore earned in the corresponding period of the previous financial year, the bank said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.

The bank brought down its net non-performing assets (NPAs) to 7.88 per cent as on September 30, from 14.36 per cent by the end of September 2018.

Gross NPAs or bad loans reduced to 15.51 per cent of the gross advances by the end of September, compared with 22.69 per cent in the year-ago period.

In absolute terms, the net NPAs were Rs 5,380.93 crore against Rs 8,658.10 crore, while the gross NPAs were Rs 11,544.19 crore from Rs 15,163.28 crore.

Thus, the bank's provisioning and contingencies requirement for July-September 2019 came down to Rs 436.42 crore from Rs 1,481.24 crore parked aside for the year-ago period.

The lender said it made additional provision of Rs 46.75 crore in respect of eligible NCLT accounts by the end of second quarter.

"Actual provision as on September 30, 2019, for NCLT (list 1 and 2) accounts stand at Rs 3,322.77 crore instead of Rs 3,276.01 crore as per IRAC (income recognition and asset classification) norms," it added.

Provision coverage ratio as on September 30 stood at 74.89 per cent, said United Bank of India.

"Pursuant to the government's letter dated August 30, 2019 on amalgamation of PSBs (public sector banks), the board of directors of the bank at its meeting held on September 18, 2019, had considered and accorded its in-principle approval for amalgamation of United Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Punjab National Bank and commencement of the amalgamation process, subject to all applicable approvals," it added.