Exim Bank net profit up 16 pc to Rs 675 crore

MUMBAI: The Export-Import Bank of India ( Exim Bank) today posted a 16 percent rise in its net profit to Rs 675 crore in the last financial year up from Rs 582 crore previous fiscal.

Total business crossed Rs 1 trillion during the reporting year.

"We have seen sound growth in our net profit and loan assets in the last financial year despite a difficult economic conditions," Chairman and Managing director TCA Ranganathan told reporters here.

The Exim Bank saw an 18 percent growth in its loan assets to Rs 54,530 crore in FY12. "We expect to continue this momentum in the current financial year as far as our loan growth is concerned," he said.

Net interest margin (NIM) improved to 2.17 percent in FY12 up from 2.07 percent.

Capital to risk asset ratio was at Rs 16.44 percent in FY12.

According to the bank, the bank has extended line of credit (LoC) aggregating USD 1,499 million (around Rs 7,500 crore) in FY12 and project export contracts of Rs 22,975 crore during this period.

The bank has also extended assistance of Rs 4,178 crore to 54 corporates as part of the overseas investment financing in 23 countries during the last fiscal.

Referring to borrowing programme in the current fiscal, Ranganathan said the bank will borrow around USD 3-4 billion in foreign currency and the similar amount in the domestic currency.

The bank raised borrowings of varying maturities aggregating Rs 27,630 crore in FY12, out of which foreign currency loans stood at Rs 13,333 crore.

"I don't think cost of borrowing is going to be higher after yesterday's S&P rating update. Also, it is too premature to gauge an impact due to such development at this point of time," he said.