In the fourth quarter, net profit climbed 6%, despite evident pressure on margins, to ₹19,684 crore. On a standalone basis, SBI reported annual net profit ₹80,032 crore, up 13% over March 2025, while consolidated profit climbed 7% at the bank that is India’s largest lender by outstanding bank credit.
Chairman CS Setty said the bank continues to expect credit growth at 13% to 15% in the current fiscal year ending March 2027 citing a ₹5.5 lakh crore corporate loan pipeline and continuing strong trends in the retail, agriculture and MSME (RAM) loans.
“The West Asia crisis and volatilities in inflation notwithstanding, we are still confident of a 13% to 15% loan growth even this year because we are still seeing a strong corporate pipeline and RAM growth also remains strong,” Setty said. “We expect loan yields to improve as more of our assets which are on a floating rate, get repriced.”
Profit was aided by a strong loan growth despite losses in its treasury business. Net profit was higher than the ₹18,898 crore estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Live Events
On Treasury Losses
Net interest income (NII), or the difference between interest earned on loans and that paid for deposits, increased 4% to ₹44,380 crore as corporate and retail advances growth was healthy at an identical 15% each.
Setty said with a capital adequacy of 15% that can support ₹12 lakh crore of loan growth and excess bond investments of ₹3 lakh crore, the bank does not need to raise equity capital this fiscal.
Thinning Margins
Domestic net interest margin (NIM), or the difference between the yield on loans and cost of funds, dropped to 2.93% in March 2026 from 3.14% a year ago, reflecting the pressure on the bank’s yields.
Setty, however, said SBI expects to maintain a 3% NIM in the current fiscal assuming there is no further change in the benchmark repo rate by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The bank’s stock fell 7% to ₹1,019 a piece on BSE, likely as investors were disappointed with the bank’s NIM.
Non-interest income fell 29% to ₹17,314 crore mainly due to losses the bank suffered in its treasury business. The bank had to unwind its forex positions after RBI late March asked banks to cap their net open rupee positions in offshore markets to $100 million at the end of each business day effective April 10.
That was far lower than the 25% of total capital limits allowed earlier.
“We unwound $5 billion of derivative positions. Our treasury losses during the quarter were ₹4,500 crore. On the derivative position, we made a ₹100 crore mark to market loss during the fourth quarter and an actual ₹57 crore loss which will be accounted for in the current quarter,” Setty said.
Details in the bank’s investor presentation showed that SBI suffered a ₹1,471 crore loss in its bond investments in the quarter ended March 2026 from a ₹6,879 crore gain recorded in the same period a year ago. Fee income, another component of other income, increased 8% year on year.
Setty said the domestic economy continues to be in good shape but supply chain risks and its resulting impact on local inflation and consumption could be the risks that have to be watched out for. SBI does not expect consumption to be impacted till inflation breaches 4%.
He said the bank does not see any impact on its business due to the West Asia crisis but had decided not to undertake new business in the gulf countries for now. “If this crisis lingers on for the next five to six months, we will have some impact on macros, so we have to wait and watch,” he said.
Asset quality remained stable with the bank’s net NPA ratio dropping to 0.39% in March 2026 from 0.47% a year ago. SBI has declared a dividend of ₹17.35 per equity share for the financial year ended March 2026.