SBI hopes to maintain treasury gains in the second quarter

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The country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) is hopeful of maintaining its impressive performance on the treasury income front in the second quarter as well, a top bank official said.

"We are hopeful that income from treasury will be maintained at the present (Q1) level," deputy managing director and group executive (Global Markets) of SBI, P.P. Pradeep Kumar said here.

During the first quarter, the public sector lender has optimally managed its treasury operations to post mark-to-market gain.

SBI has a mark to market gain of Rs 521 crore during the last quarter, which was an important factor that helped SBI post its highest ever net profit at Rs 3,752 crore.

Furthermore, the bank also said that it was able to check losses in the equity portfolio by exiting from all loss-making entities.

Referring to high government borrowing plan coupled with possible hardening bond yield, Kumar said any small change in yield is not going to impact profitability of the treasury operations. "I don't think any small change will have major impact on the treasury gain," he said.

The SBI posted a 137 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 3,752 crore in the first quarter ending June on the back of healthy net interest income.

Net profit of the public sector bank stood at Rs 1,583 crore in the same period previous fiscal. Total income of the bank increased by 16.9 percent to Rs 32,415 crore in the June quarter as compared to Rs 27,732 crore reported in the same period last fiscal.