SBI reports highest-ever Q3 profit at ₹14,205 cr

India's largest public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) has reported its highest-ever quarterly net profit at ₹14,205 crore, recording a 68.47% growth on a year-on-year basis, during the October-December quarter of FY23. SBI’s net profit in the year-ago period was ₹8,431.9 crore. The robust growth in Q3 has been attributed to strong growth in its core income and a reduction in provisions.

The bank's operating profit for Q3 FY23 surged 36.16% Y-o-Y to ₹25,219 crore. Its net interest income (NII) increased by 24.05% to ₹38,069 crore from ₹30,687 crore in the year-ago quarter, SBI says in an exchange filing.

Interest income for the said quarter stood at ₹86,616 crore, up 24.31%.

For the July-September quarter (Q2 FY23) of FY23, too, SBI had posted a record quarterly profit of ₹13,264.62 crore, up 74% YoY, while its total income rose 14% to ₹88,733.86 crore YoY.

The PSU bank's net interest margin for Q3 FY 23 stood at 3.69%, up 29 basis points YoY from 3.4% in the year-ago quarter.

SBI's gross Q3 non-performing assets (NPAs) dipped 136 bps YoY to 3.14% of its total advances from 4.5% in the year-ago period. The net Q3 NPA fell 57 bps YoY to 0.77% of the total advances from 1.34% in the year-ago quarter.

SBI says its total provisions in Q3 dipped 17% to ₹5,761 crore, while provisions against NPAs nearly halved to ₹1,586.47 crore. Its provision coverage ratio as of Q3 FY23 stood at 76.12%, up 490 bps YoY.

While the bank's slippage ratio for the said quarter stood at 0.41%; credit cost improved by 28 bps YoY to 0.21%.

In SBI's balance sheet, the credit growth was recorded at 17.60% YoY, with domestic advances growing by 16.91% YoY. The PSB's foreign offices’ advances surged 21.47% YoY. The bank says its domestic advances growth was driven by retail personal advances (18.10% YoY), followed by corporate advances at 18.08% YoY. Retail personal advances crossed ₹5 lakh crore. The bank says SME and agri loans also recorded 14.16% and 11.52% growth, respectively.

SBI’s CASA ratio stood at 44.48% as on 31st December 22, the bank said, adding its capital adequacy ratio was at 13.27%. According to SBI, 64% of its accounts and 41% of retail asset accounts were acquired digitally through its mobile app YONO. The share of alternate channels in total transactions increased from 95.3% in 9MFY22 to 97.2% in 9MFY23.

Shares of SBI, meanwhile, rallied nearly 3.33% to ₹545.70 on Friday on the expectations of strong Q3 numbers. In comparison, the BSE Sensex surged 1.52% to reach 60,841.88. The banking heavyweight stock has been down 0.89% in the past week; 9.83% in the past month; up 2.33% in the past six months; and down 10.86% in the year-to-date period.