Canaraaims to improve bottom line
NEW DELHI: Recording over twofold jump in its net profit in fiscal year ended March 2022, Canara Bank aims to improve its bottom line further with balanced focus on advances to retail, big and small businesses, coupled with greater focus on digitisation.
During 2021-22, the stateowned lender recorded a robust growth of 122% in its net profit at ₹5,678 crore, with operating profit rising by over 17% to ₹23,089 crore.
It had earned a net profit of ₹2,558 crore in the preceding fiscal year ended March 2021.
The challenges emanating from the global macro scenario reflected on the domestic economy, leading to a slowing down of the growth momentum of the Indian economy. However, there are positive signals for aggregate demand with consumer and business confidence picking up, Canara Bank managing director and chief executive officer LV Prabhakar said in its annual report 2021-22.
He said bank credit growth is indicating signs of a gradual recovery and improvement is being observed in exports and imports.
“Going forward, credit growth is expected to gain traction in tandem with economic growth. Despite the challenges of FY22, your bank has demonstrated robust business performance with good growth in both deposits and advances,” Prabhakar said in his address to the shareholders.
Canara Bank is always keen on maintaining a well-balanced asset mix, encompassing sectors such as agriculture and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as well as keeping a focus on retail assets, including housing, education, and vehicle loans, the official said. “Going ahead, bank aims at improving the bottom line further with balanced thrust on retail, MSME and corporate advances coupled with increased adoption of digitalisation for efficiency improvement. The bank expects improved CASA and CASA ratio in FY23 by increasing customer network and adopting aggressive strategy of setting up of government business verticals,” Prabhakar said.
As per the bank’s strategy, the government business vertical will act as the nodal vertical for liaisoning with government departments. including focus on opening of Single Nodal Agency (SNA) & Central Nodal Agency (CNA) accounts.
In FY22, bank’s CASA (Current Account Savings Account) performance increased to ₹3,68,732 crore, up by 11.5% from ₹3,30,656 crore as on March 2021. Of this, savings deposits grew by 12.2% on year to ₹3,15,916 crore and current deposits by 7.5% from a year ago to ₹52,816 crore.
This reflected the CASA ratio of the bank improving from 34.33% to 35.88%. The bank has a strong deposits clientele base of about 105.1 million. On small and medium enterprises, the bank said MSME lending is one of the thrust areas, as the sector supports employment generation, export growth and has a positive multiplier effect.
The bank’s advances to MSME stood at ₹11,9,026 crore with MSE advances of ₹1,01,716 crore as on March 2022.