South Indian Bank targets 11-12% deposit growth in FY25: MD & CEO Seshadri

Thrissur-based South Indian Bank is expecting a growth of around 11-12 per cent in its deposits during the financial year 2024-25, said P Seshadri, managing director and chief executive officer of the bank.  

“We think that we will achieve the current growth rate of 11-12 per cent, both on the deposit and assets side in FY25,” Seshadri said. During the year, Seshadri also expects further improvement in the bank’s asset quality. “In asset quality side, both our gross NPA and net NPA dropped. We believe that this trend will continue,” he said. 

The bank’s gross non-performing asset in Q4FY24 came down by 64 bps from 5.14 per cent to 4.50 per cent on a year-on-year basis. On the other hand, NNPA dropped by 40 bps from 1.86 per cent to 1.46 per cent on a YoY basis.

“This year we want to reduce our GNPA levels to 4 per cent and NNPA to be a touch over 1 per cent,” Seshadri added. 

“Our gross slippages on a monthly basis are around 35 bps. This puts us amongst the better performing banks,” he said. 

The bank has posted a 14 per cent dip in net profit during the fourth quarter of the financial year 2023-24 to ~287.56 crore, as against ~333.89 crore during the same period in 2022-23.

“The good news is that net interest income for this quarter was very strong at ~875 crore. There has been a strong growth in average assets. During the Q4 of last year, we had very strong recoveries. During the last quarter of this year, we had strong other income,” he added. 

The bank will focus more on growing its retail and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) portfolio.

“Our personal segment grew by around 10 per cent and gold by 12 per cent. Corporate is our fastest growing segment at around 30 per cent,” Seshadri said.

“The majority of our exposure is to very high rated corporates. Around 98 per cent of it is to corporates rated A and above, and 60 per cent of it is to corporates rated AAA,” he said.

“We are reasonably comfortable with corporate exposure,” he added. 

Following the directions by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last month, the bank stopped issuing co-branded credit cards to new customers on account of regulatory deficiencies. The bank also said that it will refrain from accepting new applications for co-branded credit cards until it satisfies all the regulatory requirements.

“We are working together with co-branded partners,” he said. 

First Published: May 06 2024 | 2:48 PM IST