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State-owned Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) has emerged as the top performer among public sector lenders in terms of loan and deposit growth during the financial year 2020-21.

The lender recorded a 13.45% increase in gross advances at Rs 1.07 lakh crore in 2020-21, as per the published data of BoM.

It was followed by Punjab & Sind Bank which posted an 8.39% growth in advances with aggregate loans at Rs 67,811 crore at the end of March 2021.

When it came to deposit mobilisation, BoM with nearly 16% growth was ahead of even the country’s largest lender State Bank of India, which recorded a 13.56% rise.

However, in absolute terms, SBI’s deposit base was 21 times higher at Rs 36.81 lakh crore as against Rs 1.74 lakh crore of BoM.

Current Account Savings Account (CASA) for BoM saw 24.47 per cent rise, the highest among the public sector lenders, during the year.

As a result, CASA was 54% or Rs 93,945 crore of the total liability of the bank.

According to the announced quarterly numbers, Central Bank of India achieved the second spot by recording 11.46% growth in CASA at Rs 1.61 lakh crore.

Total business of BoM increased 14.98% to Rs 2.81 lakh crore.

For the full year 2020-21, BoM’s standalone net profit jumped nearly 42% to Rs 550.25 crore. In the previous year, the profit was Rs 388.58 crore.

The bank’s asset quality improved significantly as the gross bad loans or gross Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) dipped to 7.23 per cent of gross advances by the end of March 2021 as against 12.81% by the same period of 2020.

In absolute terms, gross bad loans stood at Rs 7,779.68 crore at the end of March 2021, lower than Rs 12,152.15 crore recorded in the year-ago period.

Net NPAs came down to 2.48 per cent (Rs 2,544.32 crore) from 4.77 per cent (Rs 4,145.38 crore)