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.

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Top Public Sector Banks In India 2020

These banks have emerged to be trusted brands where people deposit and invest money without thinking twice. Some of these banks stand out when it comes to offering services and are thus a preferred choice of greater number of people.

Here is a look at some of the best public sector banks in India.

1] State Bank of India 

Commonly known as SBI, this bank was set up in the year 1955. It is one of the oldest and the most trusted public sector banks in India. SBI is owned by the Indian government. It offers all kinds of banking services and is known for maintaining transparency in its dealings. It boasts of more than 40 crore satisfied customers.

After receiving an overwhelming response from people in India, the bank went on to open its branches worldwide. Today, it has nearly 200 offices in 36 different countries.  The headquarters of SBI are located in Mumbai.

2] Bank of India

This bank was established in the year 1906 as a privately owned entity. However, after the nationalization of banks, it became a public sector bank. This change took place back in 1969. The bank has 5,500 branches operating across the country. 

It has been serving millions of Indians by catering to their banking requirements.The bank also has its branches outside the country. It operates in 22 other countries with around 60 branches. New York, Paris, London and Singapore are among the countries where Bank of India has its branches.

3] Punjab National Bank

This bank came into being in the year 1895. It was founded under the guidance of one of the greatest Indian leaders of all times, Lala Lajpat Rai. The bank was established as a part of the Swadeshi movement. PNB was managed solely by Indians.

It became extremely popular in the pre-independence era and is still trusted as much. It offers several banking services and is known for providing quality banking products. The bank has around 7000 branches and has its presence in every nook and corner of the country.

4] Bank of Baroda

Bank of Baroda was opened in Vadodara, Gujrat in the year 1908. The bank is known to offer quality banking and finance services to its customers ever since its inception.

It is known to be the second largest nationalized bank in the country. The bank does not only operate in India but has its presence around the world. It operates in as many as 25 countries across the globe with more than 75 million happy customers. Dena bank and Vijaya bank merged with Bank of Baroda recently thereby making it an even bigger entity.

5] Central Bank of India

Central Bank came into being in the year 1911. It has been serving the customers happily ever since the beginning. The bank is known to offer numerous banking products.

It has a team of qualified and experienced bankers who have the answer to all your banking related queries and are always happy to help their customers. The bank has nearly 5,000 branches operating pan India. It also has offices in Hong Kong and Nairobi.

The headquarters of this bank is set up in Mumbai.

6] Canara Bank

Established in the year, 1906, Canara bank has its headquarters in Bengaluru. The bank has more than 6000 branches and nearly 9500 ATMs operating across the country. It offers several banking products and is known to offer impeccable service. It has more than 8 crore happy customers.

The bank does not only operate in India but has its branches in many other countries too. It has been serving people in New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai, London, Manama, Leicester, Johannesburg and Dubai.

7] Union Bank of India

Union Bank of India started as a limited company in the year 1919. It became a full-fledged bank in the year 1969 after nationalisation. The bank offers numerous banking products. By providing quality banking services consistently for years it has managed to acquire more than 5 crore customers.

Its customer base is increasing with every passing year. It is the proud owner of over 4500 branches spread across India. It also has branches in 4 other countries including Hong Kong, Sydney, Dubai and Antwerp.

8] UCO Bank

UCO Bank was established back in the year, 1943. It has its headquarters in Kolkatta, West Bengal. The bank has around 50 branches across the country and nearly 4000 plus service units. It has also made its presence overseas with branches in Singapore and Hong Kong.

9] Bank of Maharashtra

Bank of Maharashtra came into being in the year, 1935. The bank has been offering excellent service to its customers ever since its inception. It provides all kinds of banking and finance services. It has its headquarters in Pune. 87.74% of the total shares of the bank are held by the Government of India.

10] Indian Overseas Bank

Indian Overseas Bank was established back in the year, 1937. It has more than 3,400 branches across the country. The bank offers a host of banking services to meet the requirement of different segments of customers. After its success in the country, the bank went on to open branches in foreign land. It has 6 foreign branches.

You can safely open account and acquire other banking services from any of these banks!

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Uco Bank narrows loss in Q4FY20

India's oil import from Iran has helped state-owned Uco Bank cut losses by 27% in the fourth quarter as the bank gained Rs 13000-Rs 14000 crore of interest free floating fund from Indian oil refiners.

Uco has been one of the designated banks for settling payments for India's oil imports from Iran under US sanction.a

The floating fund helped the bank's low cost current and savings accounts (CASA) rise to 43.5% at the end of March 31 from 35.5% a year back and cost deposit fall 31 basis points to 4.87% on quarterly basis.

"Iran (oil import) has contributed to Uco's good performance," bank's executive director Charan Singh said.

Under US sanction, Indian oil refiners used to make payment to the designated rupee-account at Uco for importing oil from Iran. The Kolkata-based lender, in turn, made payments to Iranian exporters for exporting goods to India.

But now India has stopped purchases of Iranian oil in the wake of renewed US sanctions. "We aim to substitute the floating fund by normal deposit ," Uco's chief executive director AK Goel said, after announcing the financial results.

Uco has curtailed the fourth quarter loss to Rs 1552 crore from Rs 2134 crore. This was the bank's 14th consecutive quarterly loss.

"But I promise you FY20 will be a wonderful year for Uco Bank and we expect to be back in black in fourth quarter and get out of prompt corrective action this fiscal,"

Its operating profit grew over six times at Rs 691 crore from Rs 112 crore while net interest margin improved to 1.84% for the fourth quarter from 1.32% in the year ago period.

The lender's gross non performing assets shrunk to Rs 29888 crore (25%) as against Rs 31122 crore (27.4%) a quarter back. Net NPA ratio improved to 9.7% from 12.5% on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

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Uco bank net loss narrows in Q3

State-run Uco Bank has reported net loss of Rs 960 crore for the December quarter, marginally less than its net loss in the year ago period but higher than that of in the preceding quarter. The bank's operating profit, which is calculated before provisions and contingencies, however trebled at Rs 1211 crore against Rs 381 crore in the year agop period.

It had reported net loss of Rs 892 crore for the September 2019 quarter and Rs 999 crore for the December 2018 one, according to the bank's regulatory filing to stock exchanges.

The bank's total provisions and contingencies grew 62 per cent at Rs 2171 crore from Rs 1340 crore -- despite a 27 per cent dip in provisions to cover non performing assets (NPA) at Rs 1646 crore -- forcing it to report the straight 17th quarter loss.

Asset quality, Uco's nemesis for decades, has improved from the past year with gross NPA ratio at 19.45 per cent at the end of December compared with 27.39 per cent a year back. Net NPA ratio, which has fallen to 6.34 per cent from 12.48 per cent for the same period, has raised hopes of it coming down below the critical 6 per cent level which would help it to get out of the Prompt Corrective Action net. It was put under PCA in 2017.

The bank's profit from treasury more than halved in the December quarter at Rs 335 crore from Rs 806 crore a year back which restricted the fall in net loss.

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These PSU Banks to get Rs.8,655 crore for preferential allotment

The government has approved releasing Rs.8,655 crore to three public sector lenders -- Allahabad Bank, Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) and UCO Bank -- for preferential allotment of shares.

The Ministry of Finance has approved infusing fresh capital amounting to Rs.2,153 crore in Allahabad Bank, Rs.2,142 crore in UCO Bank and Rs.4,630 crore in IOB via for preferential allotment of shares.

Fresh capital infusion by the government is a part of the announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her maiden Budget on 5 July.

Sitharaman had first proposed a capital infusion Rs.70,000 crore in public-sector banks in two phases. First, banks were to subscribe to bonds floated by the government and in the second phase, the government was to infuse the money into these banks.

As of 20 November, the government had infused Rs.60,314 crore in public-sector banks of the total of Rs.70,000 crore that was announced for these banks.

At 12.16pm, the shares of Allahabad Bank were nearly 8% up at Rs.19.15 apiece. Shares of UCO Bank were higher by 3.6% and IOB nearly 9% at Rs.17.40 and Rs.12.25 , respectively.

All these three banks are currently under the Reserve Bank of India’s prompt corrective action (PCA) framework and their ability to exit the same will be driven by a reduction in net non-performing asset ratio to less than 6.0% and maintenance of capital conservation buffer, which further depends on the capital infusion by the government.

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UCO Bank net loss narrows in Q2FY20

State-owned Uco Bank has cut net losses by 21.5% at Rs 892 crore for the September quarter on higher net interest income and treasury earnings. It had net loss of Rs 1,136 crore in the year ago period.

Uco's operating profit grew 139% at Rs 1207 crore -- the highest in last 16 quarters, but 44% higher provisions against bad loans at Rs 2034 crore forced the lender to book net losses for the 16th quarter in a row.

The bank's overall asset quality improved with gross non-performing assets ratio falling to 21.87% at the end of second quarter from 25.37% a year back but the lender had to make higher provisions because of fresh slippages of Rs 1378 crore and on account of ageing provisions, managing director AK Goel told ET.

Net NPA ratio improved to 7.32% from 11.97% in the same period. The bank had earlier in the month reported Rs 1223 crore divergence in asset classification as on March.

Our effort will hereon be on how to increase operating profit and net interest income," Goel said. The bank's cost of deposits have fallen to 4.97% from 5.16% with current and savings account ratio to total deposits improving to 40.55% from 36.96%.

Its interest income rose 31.3% at Rs 1266 crore while it booked a trading profit of Rs 368 crore compared with Rs 277 crore in the year ago period.

Goel said his bank has followed the earlier income tax rules for the quarter and half year and is evaluating the option to adopt the new tax rules as amended by the government recently.

"The bank has recognised deferred tax asset of Rs 8,086.37 crore on carry forward losses up to March 31. During the quarter, the bank has recognised deferred tax assets of Rs 542.47 crore," it said in a regulatory filing.

During the second quarter to September 2019 period, the central government infused Rs 2,130 crore by way of preferential allotment of equity shares. With this, Uco's capital adequacy ratio improved to 11.44% from 10.88% three months back.

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This PSU bank very much confident to coming out from PCA

Public sector lender UCO Bank is confident of coming out of the RBI's Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework by March next year and hopes to turn profitable by the last quarter of fiscal year 2020, its MD and CEO Atul Kumar Goel said on August 18.

The Reserve Bank of India's PCA framework kicks in when banks breach any of the four key regulatory trigger points, namely capital-to-risk weighted assets ratio, net non-performing assets, return on assets (profitability), and leverage ratio.

"We are growing quarterly, and we have pledged to come out of the PCA framework. I am hopeful and confident we will come out of PCA by March 2020," Goel told reporters on the sidelines of the bank's meeting of branch heads.

"In the quarter ending June 2019, we have shown an operating profit of Rs 1,201 crore. It is the highest in the last fourteen quarters. Loss is only on account of NPA provision. If we recover from NPA, this provision will reduce and we will come into profitability," Goel added.

Speaking on the NPA front, he said, "Our NPA in March 2019 was Rs 29,786 crore. It has reduced to Rs 29,432 crore. Net NPA in March 2019 was Rs 9,650 crore, and it has come down to Rs 8,782 crore in June quarter."

Goel said the bank had set an NPA recovery target of Rs 2,000 crore per quarter, or Rs 8,000 crore per year, in addition to cases referred to National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

"In NCLT cases, I am confident, within this quarter, as on date, we should be in a position to recover at least Rs 1,500 crore from three-four big accounts. This will be done in December if not in September," he said.

The Sunday meeting was part of the Union finance ministry's directives to PSU banks to hold consultation and seek suggestions from officers starting from branch level, in order to align banking with national priorities.

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Uco Bank Q1 result, net loss narrows

State-owned UCO Bank on Thursday reported narrowing of its net loss to Rs 601.45 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, as bad loan provisioning declines. 

The bank had posted a net loss of Rs 633.88 crore in the corresponding April-June period of the previous financial year. 

Its total income in the June 2019 quarter rose to Rs 4,446.61 crore as against Rs 4,360.88 crore in the year-ago quarter, the bank said in a regulatory filing. 

The bank’s asset quality witnessed slight improvement, with the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) standing at 24.85% of the gross advances as at the end of June 2019, as against 25.71% a year ago. 

Net NPAs stood at 8.98%, down from 12.74%. In terms of absolute value, the gross NPA was Rs 29,431.60 crore, compared with Rs 29,786.41 crore in the year-ago period. Net NPAs were Rs 8,781.97 crore by the end of the first quarter this fiscal, as against Rs 12,558 crore a year ago. 

Thus, there was a decline in provisions for bad loans for the quarter at Rs 1,374.97 crore, against Rs 2,038.33 crore in the corresponding period a year ago. The overall provisions and contingencies stood at Rs 1,802.89 crore, compared with Rs 1,781.28 crore a year ago.

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