Yes Bank’s plan to transfer its entire bad loan book to its proposed asset restructuring company (ARC) may slip to the next financial year as the formation of the ARC got delayed due to the spread of the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The bank has zeroed into four-five prospective investors for the ARC from a list of dozen firms, managing director Prashant Kumar said. The private sector lender intends to transfer about Rs 50,000 crore of bad loans including the written-off loans from the balance sheet.

Kumar said that the plan to set up the ARC and transfer the bad loans might be delayed by a quarter. Earlier, he had said that the bank would have zero non-performing assets by the end of March 2022.

The bank has its gross NPA at 14.65 per cent at the end of December 31, 2021, as compared with 15.36 per cent a year back. A lower slippage at Rs 978 crore against Rs 1,783 crore in the September quarter helped contain NPAs.

It reported a 76 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 266 crore over Rs 151 crore in the year-ago quarter, helped by a 82 per cent drop in provisioning at Rs 375 crore against Rs 2089 crore over the same period

Net interest margin for the quarter was at 2.4 per cent against 2.2 per cent in the preceding quarter, led by a 30 basis points fall in cost of deposits at 4.9 per cent.

Operating profit fell 66 per cent at Rs 730 crore against Rs 2173 crore on 12 per cent lower total income at Rs 5664 crore.