After providing Rs 168.8 crore for taxation, HDFC Bank earned a net profit of Rs 368.5 crore during the second quarter of the current financial year ended September 30, registering an increase of 40.1% over the same period of last year.

Paresh Sukthankar, who was promoted as executive director of the bank during its board meet on Friday, told FE, ?In an environment when there is some slowdown in the system thanks to the tightening of credit, we were able to book a bigger profit.?

Citing the reason behind it, Sukthankar said that we have a good mix of wholesale and various loan products and hence the portfolio was much balanced.

Overall, portfolio quality has remained stable with net NPAs at 0.4%, he added.

The total income of the bank for the quarter grew by 44% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year to Rs 2,845.1 crore.

Net revenue (net interest income plus other income) for the quarter was Rs 1,645.1 crore, an increase of 38.7% over Rs 1,185.7 crore for the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Net interest income (interest earned less interest expended) for the quarter increased by Rs 374.7 crore to Rs 1,162.7 crore, up by 47.6%.

Total balance sheet size increased by 44.1% from Rs 84,363 crore a year ago to Rs 1,21,545 crore. Total deposits were Rs 91,069 crore, an increase of 43.5% over the same period during previous year.

With savings account deposits of Rs 22,373 crore and current account deposits at Rs 25,456 crore, the CASA mix was healthy at 52.5% of total deposits.

Deposits included around Rs 3,000 crore of collections held in current accounts as a banker to various initial public offerings. The bank?s total customer assets (including advances, corporate debentures, investments in securitised paper, etc) increased to Rs 65,812 from Rs 49,326 crore a year ago, a growth of 33.4%.

Retail loans grew 37.1% on a year-on-year basis to Rs 34,568 crore, and now form 55.1% of gross advances.

Talking about retail business, Sukthankar said that our retail business comprises 55% of our gross advances and 58% of the revenues.

Net profit for the half-year ended September 30, 2007 was Rs 689.7 crore, up by 37.3%, over the corresponding period last year.

The bank earned total income of Rs 5,486.8 crore as against Rs 3,771.0 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Net revenue (net interest income plus other income) for the six months were Rs 3,203.1 crore, up by 39.6% over Rs 2,294.2 crore for the same period during previous year.