SBI to raise up to $3 billion in FY25

India’s largest lender State Bank of India on Tuesday said its board has approved raising up to $3 billion via debt in the ongoing fiscal.

The public sector lender will raise the funds in one or more tranches through a public offer or a private placement of senior unsecured notes, which will be denominated in U.S. dollars or another major foreign currency, it said in a regulatory filing.

SBI reported a 24% year-on-year rise in its net profit at ₹20,698 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2024, as against ₹16,694.51 crore in the year-ago period. Net profit for FY24 stood at ₹61,077 crore, witnessing a growth of 21.59% year-on-year after accounting for wage settlement and one-time exceptional item of ₹7,100 crore. The operating profit for FY24 grew 12.05% to ₹93,797 crore; while operating profit for Q4 grew 16.76% to ₹28,748 crore.

In Q4 FY24, SBI's interest income came in at ₹1,11,043 crore vs 92,951 in the year-ago period. The net interest income surged to ₹41,656 crore against ₹40,392.5 crore, up 3.1%.

The PSU lender's balance sheet exhibited growth as the credit growth was at 15.24% on-year, with domestic advances up 16.26%. Corporate advances and agri advances crossed ₹11 lakh crore and ₹3 lakh crore, respectively. The bank says its domestic advances growth was driven by SME advances, up 20.53%, followed by agri advances that grew 17.92%. 

In Q4 FY24, the whole bank deposits grew 11.13%, out of which the CASA deposits grew 4.25% on-year and the CASA ratio stood at 41.11% as of March 31, 2024.

The bank's asset quality improved by 54 basis points on-year as the GNP ratio stood at 2.24% and the net NPA ratio at 0.57% improved by 10 bps. The bank's capital adequacy ratio (CAR) as of the end of FY24 stood at 14.28%.

The bank's Q4 FY24 revenue surged to ₹1,28,411.88 crore against ₹1,06,912.46 crore in the year-ago period. The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPA) dipped 7.32% to ₹84,276 crore as of Q4 FY24 vs ₹86,749 crore in the year-ago period. The net NPA dipped 1.94% to ₹21,051.1 crore vs ₹22,408 crore in the year-ago period.

For the full fiscal year, the bank's NII surged 10.38% to ₹1.59 lakh crore in FY24 against ₹1.44 lakh crore in FY23. The gross advances have grown by 9.47% year-on-year. The growth in customer credit is majorly contributed by the US, UK, Middle East and GIFT City branches. Slippages for FY24 also increased by 10.29% and the slippage ratio improved by 3 bps on-year to 0.62%.