Bank of Baroda reported a net profit of Rs 1,779 crore in the fiscal fourth quarter ended March 2022 compared to a loss of Rs 1,046 in the year-ago quarter.

On a sequential basis, the profit dropped 19% from Rs 2,197 crore.

The state-run bank has recommended a dividend of Rs 1.20  per equity share  for FY22.

For the full-fiscal, Bank of Baroda reported a sharp rise in its net profit to Rs 7,272 crore from Rs 829 crore in FY21.

"The profitability has been from all round improvement in most metrics,” Bank of Baroda managing director and CEO Sanjiv Chadha said.

In the fiscal fourth quarter, the net interest income (NII), difference between interest earned and interest expended, grew 21% year-on-year to Rs 8,612 crore. Sequentially, there was a marginal growth of 0.7% from Rs 8,552 crore.

For the full year, NII grew 13% to Rs 32,621 crore.

The domestic net interest margin (NIM) fell to 3.14% from 3.21% in the preceding quarter. In the year-ago period the NIM was at 2.73%. For the year, the domestic NIM was at 3.09%, improving from 2.79% in FY21.

“There was a slight overestimation of NIM by 10 basis points due to certain recoveries in the 31 December 2021 quarter. There is actually no decline in NIM. It remains consistent on an adjusted basis in line with what we said in December,” Chadha said.

The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the bank reduced to Rs 54,059 crore in the March quarter from Rs 66,671 crore a year earlier, while gross NPA ratio improved 226 basis points to 6.61%. The bank wrote off Rs 4,425 crore of bad loans during the quarter.

The net NPA ratio for the quarter improved to 1.72% from 3.09% in the earlier-year quarter.

Total provisions increased 5.1% to Rs 3,736 crore in the January-March 2022 quarter, from Rs 3,555 crore in the fourth quarter of 2020-21.

The slippages for the year stood at 1.61 %  and the credit cost at 1.95%.

The bank’s total deposits grew 8.2% over the previous year to Rs 10,45,939 crore. Retail term deposits grew 3.5% to Rs 4,05,187 crore. The gross credit grew 8.9% year-on-year to Rs 8,18,120 crore. Gross domestic advances stood at Rs 6,84,153 crore, led by infrastructure and related industries.