BackCitibank India profit up 6% at Rs2,893 crore
The lender's total assets increased to Rs1.44 trillion in 2013-14 from Rs1.28 trillion last fiscal
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Mumbai: Citibank India, the local unit of Citigroup Inc., said net profit increased 6% to ₹ ,893 crore in the year ended 31 March from ₹ 2,718 crore a year earlier, driven by a 9% increase in advances.
Chief financial officer Abhijit Sen credited the performance to both interest and non-interest income as well as success in keeping asset quality under check.
The lender’s assets increased to Rs1.44 trillion in 2013-14 from Rs1.28 trillion last fiscal, but including credit to Indian companies from the bank’s overseas branches, total assets stood at Rs1.96 trillion, Citibank said in an emailed statement.
Net non-performing assets (NPAs) dropped to 1.24% from 1.47% in the year earlier. The bank’s operating expenses-to-income ratio dropped to 34% from 40% in the year earlier.
“Besides increasing revenues, we were successful in keeping costs under check by using the same resources of the organisation for higher output delivery, which helped us increase total revenues by 10% last fiscal," Sen said in a telephone interview.
Total revenues increased to ₹ 8,484 crore from ₹ 7,733 crore in 2012-13. This was driven by an 18% growth in other income, which includes commissions and fees earned by the bank.
Such income increased to ₹ 3,027 crore in 2013-14 from ₹ 2,555 crore in 2012-13. Net interest income or income earned from the bank’s core lending business increased to ₹ 5,178 crore from ₹ 5,457 crore in 2012-13.
Citibank’s deposits increased 18% over 2012-13, mainly as the bank garnered ₹ 10,500 crore ($1.7 billion) of foreign currency deposits last fiscal taking advantage of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) special concessional window.
Total deposits rose to ₹ 78,313 crore in 2013-14 from ₹ 66,559 crore in 2012-13, while the bank’s domestic loan book increased to ₹ 56,519 crore from ₹ 52,036 crore.
“We saw a consistent improvement in our retail bank earnings, maintained the profitability of our institutional client business and saw growth in the commercial banking segment with a clear focus on managing our expenses," said Pramit Jhaveri, chief executive officer of Citibank India.
Citibank’s retail asset book in India grew 10% during the year to ₹ 23,142 crore from ₹ 20,971 crore in 2012-13 mainly because of demand for mortgage loans, personal loans, credit cards and loans to small and medium enterprises.
“We were judicious in choosing our credit mix because of the challenging economic environment. We ensured that our liquidity did not get impacted because of the higher profit growth," Sen said when asked why Citi’s advances growth at 9% was lower than the 14% growth of the overall banking system.
Citibank is the third biggest foreign bank in India in terms of number of branches, with 42, behind Standard Chartered Bank’s 99 and Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd’s 50.
In February, the bank received RBI approval to open three new branches after a gap of five years, which will increase the US-based lender’s total branch strength in the country to 45.
Citi is the second foreign bank to announce its annual results in the last four days. On Thursday, British bank Barclays Plc said its Indian unit had posted a net profit of ₹ 382.14 crore against a net loss of ₹ 56.38 crore in the previous fiscal.
Barclays was helped by a decline in cost-income ratio of 37.9% against 55.8% in the previous financial year, while its total assets increased 5% to ₹ 33,378.96 crore from ₹ 31,683.28 crore in 2012-13, the bank said in an e-mailed statement.
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