CreditAccess Grameen faces repayment trouble in coastal Karnataka

Kolkata: India's largest microfinance firm CreditAccess Grameen has reported 8% rise in net profit for the December quarter at Rs 108 crore over Rs 100 crore, even as some repayment issues in coastal Karnataka has kept the lender on its toes.

Profit before tax has fallen 5% at Rs 146 crore as against Rs 154 crore in the year ago period.

"We witnessed some disturbance in certain districts in Karnataka and Maharashtra due to floods in second quarter and external interference caused by local elements in couple of districts in coastal Karnataka during third quarter," managing director Udaya Kumar Hebbar said.


He said that lenders have been trying to address the troubles through government interventions as well as creating awareness on prompt repayment culture. "These should help us to improve our collections over coming quarter and attain normalcy in the respective markets,” he added.

Despite the issues on ground, the MFI managed to improve asset quality with gross non-performing ratio falling at 0.85% at the end of December, compared with 1.19% a year back.

Its gross loan portfolio increased by 46% to Rs 8,872 crore driven by 22.5% annual growth in borrower base to 27.7 lakh.