State-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) on Saturday posted a 79 per cent rise in net profit of Rs 2,168 crore for the first quarter of the current fiscal, aided by a decline in bad loans. The lender had earned a standalone profit of Rs 1,208 crore in the year-ago period.

Its total income in the first quarter of the current fiscal increased to Rs 20,119.52 crore compared to Rs 19,915.83 crore, according to a regulatory filing.

The lender's interest income also rose to Rs 18,937.49 crore from Rs 17,052.64 crore a year ago.  Non-interest income during Q1 FY22 improved by 12 per cent to Rs 8,838 crore, boosted by fee income that climbed 15 per cent.

However, operating profit for the quarter declined by 19 per cent to Rs 4,528 crore from Rs 5,707 crore a year ago.

On the asset quality front, the lender's gross non-performing assets (NPAs) improved in the June quarter to 6.26 per cent from 8.86 per cent in the year-ago period.

In absolute terms, the gross NPAs or bad loans declined to Rs 52,590.83 crore at the end of the first quarter of FY23 compared to Rs 63,028.78 crore a year earlier. The net NPA too declined to 1.58 against 3.03 per cent a year ago.

As a result, provisions other than tax and contingencies for bad loans declined to Rs 1,684.80 crore in the April-June FY23 against Rs 4,005.40 crore in the year-ago period.

As of June this year, the Provisioning Coverage Ratio stood at 89.38 per cent while the net interest margin was stable at 3.02 per cent.

Domestic advances of the bank increased to Rs 6,95,493 crore, registering a growth of 15.7 per cent.

The capital adequacy ratio (CAR) at the end of the quarter stood at 15.46 per cent with CET-1 at 12.97 per cent on a standalone basis.