Kerala-based South Indian Bank today reported its highest-ever quarterly earnings at Rs 128.25 crore for the third quarter ending December 2012, registering a growth of 25.44 per cent.

The private sector bank had posted a net profit of Rs 102.24 crore in the year-ago period.

For the nine months ending December 2012, the bank recorded a net profit of Rs 348.45 crore as against Rs 279.70 crore for the corresponding period of the previous year, a growth of 24.58 per cent, bank's MD and CEO V A Joseph told reporters here while announcing its quarterly earnings.

The bank's business increased from Rs 58,884 crore to Rs 68,490 crore on year-to-year basis registering a growth of 16.31 per cent during April-December.

While total deposit has gone up from Rs 33,834 crore to Rs 38,940 crore, the advances increased from Rs 25,050 crore to Rs 29,550 crore.

The bank's net non-performing assets (NPAs) as on December 31 stood at 0.68 per cent of the total loan disbursed against 0.24 per cent in the year-ago period.

Despite subdued growth of the economy during the period under review, the bank could achieve this performance due to improvement in net interest margin, Joseph said.

He expressed confidence that the bank would be able to achieve total business target of Rs 75,000 crore, 750 branches and 800 ATMs by March this year.

South Indian Bank would open three new regional offices at Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Muvattupuzha and Irinjalakuda in Kerala.

CASA (current account savings account deposits) of the bank increased by 9.31 per cent to Rs 7,958 crore from Rs 7,280 crore in the year-ago period.

The lender's total income registered a growth of 26.46 per cent during the nine months period touching Rs 3,483 crore against Rs 2,754 crore for the corresponding period in the previous fiscal.

The total number of branches touched 741 as on December, 2012 against 674 the previous year.