Lower provisions & core income drive ICICI Bank September quarter net profit up 36% to Rs 10,896.13 cr

Mumbai: ICICI Bank on Saturday reported a 36.08 per cent jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 10,896.13 crore for the September quarter, helped by a sharp decline in provisions and growth in core income.

The second largest private sector lender’s standalone net profit grew to Rs 10,261 crore from Rs 7,557.84 crore in the year-ago period and Rs 9,648.20 crore in the preceding June quarter.

The total standalone income rose to Rs 40,697 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal from Rs 31,088 crore in the same period a year ago, according to a filing.

Its core net interest income grew 23.8 per cent to Rs 18,308 crore on the back of a 19.3 per cent expansion in domestic loans and a widening of net interest margin to 4.53 per cent as against the year-ago period’s 4.31 per cent.

However, on a sequential basis, the NIM for the reporting quarter contracted from 4.78 per cent in the June quarter.

Its executive director Sandeep Batra said that the trend of decline in NIMs will moderate going ahead.

Its non-interest income excluding treasury operations grew 14 per cent to Rs 5,861 crore, while the treasury losses were at Rs 85 crore, which was similar to the year-ago

period.

At a time when the Reserve Bank of India has expressed concerns over unsecured loans, Batra said the performance of the ICICI Bank’s personal loans of over Rs 1 lakh crore and credit card outstandings of Rs 43,000 crore has been “quite good”.

The overall retail growth was over 21 per cent, and the personal loans (over 40 per cent growth) and credit card ourstanding (over 30 per cent growth) seemed to be leading it, as the traditional mainstay of housing loan growth has come at 16 per cent.