Indian Overseas Bank Gets Rs 1,238-Crore Income Tax Refund

Indian Overseas Bank has received an order of tax refund of Rs 1,238 crore from the Income Tax Department, according to an exchange filing on Tuesday.

The taxation body's tax refund order pertains to assessment year 2019-20, the public sector lender said. The amounts also includes an interest, as per Section 244-A of the Income Tax Act.

The fresh tax refund will be issued to Indian Overseas Bank a couple of months after it secured another tax refund of Rs 123.8-crore from the I-T department. The refund order pertained to assessment year 2021-22, the lender had said in a regulatory filing in September.

In the quarter ended Sept. 30, the bank's standalone net profit rose 24% to Rs 777 crore, compared to Rs 625 crore in the year-ago period.

The net interest income—the difference of interest earned and interest paid— for the quarter rose 8% to Rs 2,538 crore. This compares to Rs 2,346 crore reported in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

Indian Overseas Bank's asset quality also improved in the July-September period, with the gross non-performing assets ratio declining to 2.72% from 2.89% in the April-June period. The net NPA ratio also contracted to 0.47% from 0.51% in the preceding quarter.

Shares of Indian Overseas Bank closed marginally lower by 0.02% at Rs 52.45 apiece on the NSE, compared to a 0.11% decline in the benchmark Nifty 50 index. The stock has risen by 32.28% in the last 12 months and by 20.3% on a year-to-date basis.