Bank of India Q4 loss widens to nearly ₹4,000 crore on higher bad loans

Bank of India said its asset quality worsened in the quarter ended March 31,2018. Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) hit 16.58% of the gross advances, as against 13.22% by end March 2017, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

Bank of India on Monday reported a widening of its net loss to ₹3,969.27 crore in the March quarter due to higher provisioning for mounting bad loans.

Pedestrians walk past a Bank of India (BOI) branch in Mumbai, India, on Sunday, April 22, 2018. BOI is scheduled to announce full year earnings on May 22. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)

It had reported a net loss of ₹1,045.54 crore for the January-March period of the preceding fiscal, 2016-17. In the previous quarter, October-December, of 2017-18 the loss was at ₹2,341.20 crore.

The bank’s asset quality worsened as on March 31, 2018. The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) hit 16.58% of the gross advances, as against 13.22% by end March 2017, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

Net NPAs rose to 8.26%, as against 6.90%.

In absolute terms, the gross NPAs or bad loans reached ₹62,328.46 crore as on March 31, 2018, sharply up from ₹52,044.52 crore a year ago. Net NPAs were ₹28,207.27 crore, compared with ₹25,305.05 crore.

Income in the March quarter of 2017-18 also fell to ₹10,722.07 crore, from ₹12,335.71 crore a year ago.

Provisions for bad loans for January-March, 2017-18 were increased to ₹6,699.23 crore from ₹4,483.53 crore year ago same period.

BoI said: “Due to non availability of profit, no dividend is proposed.”

The bank’s shares closed 4.71% higher at ₹107.85 on the BSE.