Bad loans rise at three mid-sized PSU banks

Indian Overseas Bank, a state-run lender, reported its second straight quarterly loss on Thursday as bad loans surged, sending its shares down by as much as 10 per cent.

UCO Bank and Allahabad Bank, two other public sector lenders that reported quarterly results on Thursday, also saw their bad loan ratios widening, leading to a fall in their share prices.

Chennai-based Indian Overseas Bank reported a net loss of Rs 516 crore ($83.45 million) for the third quarter ended December 31, 2014. Gross non-performing loans as a percentage of advances rose to 8.12 per cent from 7.35 per cent in the year-ago period. Provisions rose nearly a third from the September quarter.

Kolkata-based UCO Bank said net profit fell by 3.5 per cent to 3.04 crore for Q3 FY15. The bank's gross bad loans ratio widened to 6.5 per cent from 5.2 per cent in the September quarter.

Allahabad Bank saw its net profit almost halving to 1.64 crore in the December quarter. Gross bad loans stood at 5.46 per cent compared with 5.36 per cent in Q2.

Bigger PSU lenders such as Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank and Union Bank have also seen their bad loans rising in the December quarter.

At 2:50 pm, shares of Indian Overseas were trading 8.6 per cent lower, while stocks of UCO Bank were down 4.6 per cent and Allahabad Bank shares fell 1.7 per cent.

(Reuters)