Citibank India FY09 PAT rises 20% yoy

Citibank India on Wednesday reported its financial results for the year ended March 31, 2009. Citibank India branch announced that its net profit after tax was Rs21.73bn for the year 2008-09, representing a 20% increase from Rs18.04bn in the same period of last year. The bank has reported total revenues of Rs104.23bn for the year ended March 31, 2009, representing a 24% increase from Rs84.1bn for the same period last year. The growth in revenues was attributable both to higher interest income as well as significant growth in fee and trading income. As at March 31, 2009, the balance sheet grew by 26% from Rs838.51bn to Rs1052.64bn, reflecting continuing growth in customer lending activities. Despite industry-wide challenges in unsecured consumer credit impacting profitability of the Retail Banking segment, the increase in net income reflected strong growth in Corporate/Commercial Banking and Treasury. In addition to Citibank with 40 branches in 28 locations in India, Citi operates several other legal vehicles, including mainly two large non-bank finance companies, two brokerage companies and two other companies undertaking capital markets activities.

All of these vehicles remained profitable during the year, with the exception of Citifinancial Consumer Finance India Limited, which was impacted by the challenges of deterioration in unsecured credit quality that affected the entire industry and, Citi Wealth Advisors Private Limited which is yet to reach full scale of operations. "Notwithstanding the slowdown in the local economic environment arising from unprecedented turmoil in global markets, the strong performance of Citibank India branch underscores our strengths built up over 107 years operating in India. During the year we assisted many of our corporate customers to raise capital in the local market and, by using our global product expertise, to access international capital markets. Recognising the credit quality challenges we faced in our unsecured consumer loan portfolio, we were amongst the first in the industry to take corrective action and are pleased with our progress. Having spent 6 months in the country, I am impressed with the diversity and expanse of our franchise and excited by the possibility of developing it further in line with local market needs," said Mark T. Robinson, CEO, Citi South Asia.