UBI profit up 32.2 pc, eyes Rs 100,000 cr biz

Kolkata, Jan 27: The city based United Bank of India (UBI) has recorded a whopping 32.2 per cent jump in net profit earnings to Rs 231.8 crores during the first nine months of the current fiscal.

Announcing the financial results of the Bank from April to December 2006 period after last Thursday's Borad Meeting at Goa, UBI Chairman and Managing Director P K Gupta here today said as on December 31 last year the Bank's total business reached the Rs 54,190 crore mark registering a sound 29.1 per cent growth from the corresponding period of the previous year.

"Since we are all set to cross our annual business target of Rs 55,000 crores long before March 31 this year and are expecting to reach Rs 60,000 crores mark at the end of the current fiscal, the UBI Board of Directors has decided to target to reach a total business volume of Rs 100,000 crores by March 2009", Mr Gupta informed.

Hailing the joint efforts of UBI employees in arriving at such satisfactory performances, Mr Gupta, flanked by UBI Executive Director Sunanda Lahiri,said during the period the advances recorded a robust 41.2 per cent growth to Rs 20,687 crores, while the deposit grew by 22.6 per cent to Rs 33,503 crores as on December 31, 2006.

Similarly during the last quarter of the current fiscal(October to December) the operating profits of the Bank also grew by a whopping 47.6 per cent from Rs 131.94 crores to Rs 194.73 crores.

Ruling out the possiblity of increasing the capital base of the bank through the Tier I route, the UBI Chairman said it was not necessary since the capital adequacy ratio of the Bank presently stood as high as 12.73 per cent which was very comfortable by all means.

The proposal for capital restructuring of the bank was also put on hold for some more time by the RBI, Mr Gupta said replying to another query.

He said since the net NPA margin of the Bank was yet to come down to less than one per cent and presently stood at 1.47 per cent, the Bank had filed a total of 1242 notices to the Debt Recovery Tribunals. So far about 300 NPA borrowers had replied to the notices and we had recovered a total amount of Rs 203 crores from them so far.

Regarding the future expansion programme, Mr Gupta said during the next three years they planned to open as many as 150 branches.

UNI