Beating the restrictions imposed on one and all by the global pandemic, the largest urban co-op bank in the country-Saraswat Co-op Bank registered growth on almost all the banking parameters.
The UCB has had a business mix of Rs 63,422.13 crore and earned a net profit of Rs 250.79 as on 31st March 2020, reveals the financial report. The bank earned a gross profit of Rs 651.69 crore in 2019-20 FY.
Amidst the prevailing economic scenario, the business of the bank has increased from Rs 61,812.36 crore as on 31st March 2019 to Rs 63,422.13 crore as on 31st March 2020.
The deposits increased from Rs 36,014.87 crore to Rs 38,083.49 crore in 2019-20 financial year whereas advances reflected a marginal decline from Rs 25,797.49 crore to Rs 25,338.64 crore as on 31st March 2020, according to the financial report.
Chairman, Gautam Thakur in his message said, “going forward, in the financial year 2020-21, the bank will focus more on consolidation and strengthening of balance sheet, rather than growth numbers as signs of recovery in the economy may emerge only towards the latter part of the year i.e. Q3 onwards.”
The gross profit of the bank increased from Rs 630.27 crore as on 31st March, 2019 to Rs 651.69 crore as on 31st March, 2020 i.e. a rise of Rs 21.42 crore.
In order to pre-empt the rise in NPA provisioning because of Covid impacted advances, if any, the bank decided to take a prudent approach and created additional provisions to soften the impact of provisioning during FY 2020-21. As a result, the net profit for FY 2019-20 is seen at Rs 250.79 crore.
Had this step not been taken, the net profit for FY 2019-20 could have easily surpassed the net profit figures of Rs 291.29 crore of FY 2018-19, the figures are shared on the website of the bank.
With a sluggish economy, the stress on the credit portfolio of the banking industry continued during FY 2019- 20 and gross NPAs for almost all banks witnessed a rise during the year and the same with Saraswat bank. However, the Net NPAs have reduced from 1.80 per cent as on 31st March, 2019 to 1.56 per cent as on 31st March, 2020, with higher provisioning.
“The Own funds of your Bank have risen from Rs 3,237.38 crore as on 31st March, 2019 to Rs 3,522.04 crore as on 31st March, 2020, i.e. a rise of 8.79 per cent. The Capital to Risk-Weighted Assets Ratio (CRAR) stands at 14.75 per cent as on 31st March, 2020, higher than 13.16 per cent as on 31st March, 2019”, stated the Chairman.
The bank has announced to organize its 102nd Annual General Meeting on 7th December 2020 through video conferencing.