SBI Cards And Payment Services Profit Drops 66% In March Quarter

Edited by Peter Noronha

08 May 2020, 04:42 PM IST

SBI Cards and Payment Services' expenditure rose 41.79% to Rs 2,398.31 crore

SBI Cards and Payment Services on Friday posted a 66.41 per cent fall in net profit to Rs 83.54 crore for the quarter ended March 31. SBI Card, which listed its shares on stock exchanges BSE and NSE in March, had reported a net profit of Rs 248.74 crore for the corresponding three-month period a year ago. In a regulatory filing during market hours on Friday, the company said its revenue from operations came in at Rs 2,433.24 crore in the fourth quarter of financial year 2019-20, marking a year-on-year increase of 22.69 per cent. SBI Card said the coronavirus (COVID-19 pandemic) has led to unprecedented challenges in the economic situation.

SBI Card said it has complied with the Reserve Bank of India's guidelines on the COVID-19-triggered lockdown.

Last month, the central bank allowed lenders to extend a payment moratorium from March 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020 for their customers, in a bid to ease the financial fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.

SBI Card' impairment losses and bad debt soared 138.31 per cent to Rs 838.19 for the January-March period, while total expenditure increased 41.80 per cent to Rs 2,398.31 crore.

The company said it created a coronavirus-related provision of Rs 489 crore considering the possible effects from the pandemic.

For the financial year ended March 31, SBI Cards and Payment Services said its net profit rose 43.91 per cent to Rs 1,244.82 crore.

SBI Cards and Payment Services is a subsidiary of State Bank of India, the country's largest bank.

The company raised a fresh equity capital of Rs 499 crore through its initial public offer (IPO) in March this year.

SBI Card shares ended 2.15 per cent lower at Rs 561.45 apiece on the BSE on Friday after the earnings announcement, underperforming the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex index which rose 0.63 per cent.