SBI’s credit advanced 6.17% mainly driven by personal retail loan growth of 15.17%.

Shares of the country’s largest lender – State Bank of India surged as much as 4 per cent to hit record high of Rs 542 after it reported highest -ever quarterly profit in September quarter. SBI’s net profit in second quarter of the current financial year jumped 67 per cent to Rs 7,627 crore from Rs 4,574.16 crore during the same quarter last year. Sharp increase in net profit in September quarter came on account of steep decline in provisioning for bad loans and uptick in asset quality.

The bank’s earnings were better than estimates as analysts polled by Reuters expected SBI to report net profit Rs 7,182 crore.

The Mumbai-based lender’s provisioning for bad loans, declined 46 per cent sequentially to Rs 2,699 crore from Rs 5,030 crore in the previous quarter. On an annual basis, its provisions more than halved from Rs 5,619 crore.

State Bank of India’s net interest income or the difference between interest earned on loans and interest expended on deposits jumped 11 per cent to Rs 31,184 crore from Rs 28,181 crore.

SBI’s asset quality improved in September quarter as its gross non-performing assets, as a percentage of total advances, came in at 4.90 per cent versus 5.32 per cent in the previous quarter. its gross NPAs stood at Rs 1.23 lakh crore.

Net NPAs improved to 1.52 per cent versus 1.77 per cent in July June quarter.

The bank’s credit advanced 6.17 per cent, mainly driven by personal retail loan growth of 15.17 per cent. Home loan, which constitutes 24 per cent of the bank’s domestic advances, rose by 10.74 per cent annually, the country’s largest lender said.

Total deposits at the bank grew at 9.77 per cent on a year-on-year basis (YoY) of which current account deposits advanced 19.20 per cent and saving bank deposits rose by 10.55 per cent, SBI added.

As of 2:33 pm, SBI shares traded 1.95 per cent higher at Rs 532, outperforming the Sensex which was down 0.75 per cent.