Bank of India Q4 net loss widens to Rs 3,587 crore as bad loans mount

State-owned Bank of India's net loss widened multi-fold to Rs 3,587 crore in fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016 on account of rising bad loans. The bank had reported a net loss of Rs 56.14 crore in the January-March quarter of 2014-15.

During the quarter, total income also fell to Rs 11,384.91 crore as against Rs 12,286.98 crore a year ago. The gross non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans of the bank more than doubled to Rs 49,879.13 crore (13.07% of gross advances) as of March 2016, from Rs 22,193.24 crore (5.39%).

Net NPAs for the period stood at Rs 27,776.40 crore (7.79% of net advances) as against Rs 13,517.57 crore (3.36%). Thus, as per Reserve Bank's asset quality review (AQR) guidelines, BoI more than doubled its provisioning for bad loans and contingencies to Rs 5,470.36 crore during the quarter, from Rs 2,255.49 crore.

NPAs of over 10% may prompt RBI to initiate "prompt corrective action" to improve internal processes to deal with bad loans. For the entire fiscal 2015-16, the bank posted a net loss of Rs 6,089 crore as against a profit of Rs 1,708.92 crore in the previous fiscal.

The bank did not declare any dividend for the fiscal 2015-16 due to huge losses. Total income of the bank also declined during the fiscal to Rs 45,449.01 crore from Rs 47,662.61 crore for the year ended March 31, 2015.

Last week, Punjab National Bank reported a record quarterly loss by any public sector lender at Rs 5,367 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2016. Before this, several banks including Bank of Baroda, Syndicate Bank, UCO Bank and Allahabad Bank reported losses in their quarterly balance sheet due to bad loans pressure.