CSB Bank on Friday reported a 180 % year-on-year (y-o-y) increase in its third quarter net profit to Rs 148.25 crore largely due to an improvement in asset quality. The Thrissur-based lender had reported a net profit of Rs 53.05 crore in Q3FY21 and that of Rs 118.57 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal year. Provisions were written back for the quarter under review with recoveries and upgrades seen higher than slippages.

Asset quality of the lender improved from the preceding quarter, with Gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) as a percentage of gross advances reported at 2.62 % for Q3 FY22 , from 4.11 % in the preceding quarter and 1.77% in the same year-ago period.

Net NPA as a percentage of gross advances stands at 1.36%, against 2.63% in the preceding quarter and 0.68 % in the third quarter of FY21.

Provision Coverage of the bank is seen higher at 82.95 % and capital adequacy ratio stands at 20.74% , which is well above the regulatory requirement.

Managing Director & CEO C VR Rajendran said this quarter was really big in terms of recovery. “Though we had some challenges related to portfolio stress at the FY beginning mainly in gold due to the reversal of LTV regime as mandated by the regulators, our focused and systematic approach yielded the desired results,” he said.

“We could record y-o-y growth of 11.42% in net advances and 22.14% in CASA. Gold loans also have started to move up posting Q-o-Q growth of about 7%. Coming to profitability, Q3 continued to be a robust quarter registering growth of 179% on a YoY quarterly basis and 87% for the 9-month period ended 31.12.21 vis a vis the corresponding period last year. This could be achieved despite continuing with the accelerated provisioning policy in the current quarter as well,” he added.

CSB reported NIM at an all time high in Q3 FY22  at 5.46%,up by 24 basis points.