Dispelling fears that it would see a dip in earnings, ICICI Bank, the country?s second largest bank by assets, posted almost a flat net profit of Rs 1,014 crore for Q2 FY09 against Rs 1,003 crore recorded in the same quarter a year ago.
The bank?s UK subsidiary suffered a net loss of $35 m for the first half, owing to higher provisioning on investments abroad. The net non-performing assets (NPAs) of the UK unit are zero, as of September 30.
On the revenue side, ICICI Bank?s operations remained robust. Net interest income for Q2 rose 20% to Rs 2,148 crore from Rs 1,786 crore a year ago. Fee-based income grew 26% to Rs 1,876 crore from Rs 1,486 crore.
Significantly, the bank?s capital adequacy at the end of September 2008 grew to 14.01%, with Tier-1 capital adequacy at 11.03%. The bank said its consolidated advances of the bank and banking subsidiaries with ICICI Home Finance rose 16% to Rs 2,64,665 crore as on September 2008 as against Rs 2,27,583 crore on September 2007.
The bank?s deposits base declined marginally year-on-year due to a reduction in term deposits. But the current and savings account (CASA) base rose to 30% of deposits from 25%. Analysts see this as a strong development since the bank had a very low CASA base.
The consolidated net NPAs of the bank and its subsidiaries rose to 1.91% of net advances from 1.43% a year ago, but provisions for bad loans eased to Rs 868 crore from Rs 878 crore.