WORST IS OVER, SAYS BHATT ON SBI'S NPAS

The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) today said the "worst is over" in terms of its rising bad debts, which had dragged down its net profit by a whopping 32 per cent in the fourth quarter of the past fiscal.

"The worst is over," chairman O P Bhatt told reporters on the sidelines of an RBI event here when asked about the bank's non-performing assets (NPA) levels.

In the January-March quarter of 2009-10, SBI reported a 32 per cent fall in its net profit at Rs 1,867 crore, partly pulled down by higher provisioning for NPAs. Its net profit in the same quarter in the previous fiscal was Rs 2,742 crore.

The bank's provisioning during the quarter was 59.23 per cent of the bad assets against 56.98 per cent in the same period in the previous fiscal.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/worst-is-over-says-bhattsbi/s-npas/95773/on