The country’s state-owned largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) reported strong earnings for the quarter ended March 2021 with an 80 percent rise in net profit to Rs 6,450.7 crore, while lower slippages aiding the improvement in asset quality.

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Speaking to CNBC-TV18, SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara said that the bank witnessed decent recoveries during the quarter given a raging pandemic and it would move towards improving return on assets.

“With the resurgence of the demand, we will see better utilisation of the working capital and if the concerns relating to partial lockdown gets over, there would be better availment of term loans also. So that will give us some help in improving our loan growth,” Khara said.

Further, before going for fundraising, the bank will wait for clarity on economic scenario.

“As of now we will wait for the economics, which will be clearer. Once the COVID-19 second wave recedes, I am sure we will have better visibility in terms of the likely growth which we will get to see. As of now, we have envisaged 10 percent kind of growth which can certainly be taken care by the current capital adequacy ratio,” Khara said.

SBI is building up a sharper focus this year on the healthcare sector.

“We are trying to build up a COVID loan book. We will have some internal targets which we will set for building up a COVID loan book. That way we have identified opportunities where we should grow and there will be a sharper focus on that kind of growth this year,” he added.

The bank had recoveries of almost about Rs 10,000 crore in the last one year on the basis of advance under collection account (AUCA) and stressed assets portfolio.

“By any reckoning, it was a decent recovery. The efforts continue and I am sure it will continue going forward. Bhushan Steel’s loan is with us. We have recovered Rs 4,000 crore for Bhushan Steel in Q4,” he said.

“Our efforts are to have a sharper focus on monetising or on such assets and we are moving towards improving our return on assets (RoA),” he added.

For the full interview, watch the accompanying video

(Edited by : Ankit Gohel)

First Published:May 24, 2021 1:08 PM IST