Uco bank posts net profit in Q4

Public sector lender UCO Bank on Friday reported net profit of ₹16.78 crore for the fourth quarter which ended on March 31, mainly due to fall in NPA and lower provisioning.

The Kolkata-headquartered lender had posted net loss of ₹1,552.03 crore during January-March quarter of 2018-19.

Sequentially also, there was a net loss of ₹960.17 crore in third quarter of 2019-20.

Income during the March quarter increased to 4,511.21 crore, from ₹4,148.52 crore in same period of preceding fiscal, UCO Bank said in a regulatory filing.

Bank's provisioning for bad loans and contingencies fell to ₹1,199.82 crore during the quarter as against ₹2,242.58 crore in the year-ago period.

For the full FY20, the bank trimmed on its net loss to ₹2,436.83 crore, compared to ₹4,321.08 crore loss in FY19. Income for the year increased to ₹18,005.55 crore as against ₹15,844.14 crore.

On asset front, the lender improved its gross non-performing assets (NPAs) to 16.77 per cent of the gross advances as on March 31, 2020, compared to 25 per cent in March 2019.

In absolute value, bank's gross NPAs stood at ₹19,281.95 crore as against ₹29,888.33 crore.

Net NPAs came down to 5.45 per cent ( ₹5,510.65 crore) from 9.72 per cent ( ₹9,645.92 crore).

UCO Bank said that in terms of the Supreme Court order and necessary guidelines issued by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), it has kept Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd "DAMEPL" as standard account.

The bank said it has not treated a loan amount of ₹194.14 crore as NPA against DAMEPL. However, provision of ₹48.54 crore has been made, as required.

On divergence in asset classification and provisioning in terms of Risk Assessment Report (RAR) of the RBI for the year ended March 31, 2019, the bank said there was a gap of ₹1,217.42 crore in gross NPA reported by it, which was assessed by the RBI.

Bank has made full provision against the said divergence, it added. Thus, counting on the divergence, the bank said its net loss for FY19 widened to ₹5,225.53 crore as against ₹4,321.09 crore reported earlier.

The non-performing loan provisioning coverage ratio is 85.46 per cent as on March 31, 2020 as against 74.93 per cent a year earlier.

The bank has reported two loan accounts under Borrowal Fraud category to the RBI in the first quarter of 2020-21, and amount outstanding was ₹581.59 crore as on March 31, 2020, it said.

"The accounts were already under NPA category and provision amounting to ₹282.64 crore is held in the account as at March 31, 2020.

"Bank has made additional provision of ₹74.73 crore (25 per cent of remaining provision) as on March 31, 2020 and the remaining amount of ₹224.22 crore has been charged to Reserves and deferred for adjustment in subsequent quarters," UCO Bank said.