INDIA’S largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, on Monday reported a standalone net profit of Rs 2,976 crore in the June quarter, an increase of 12% y-o-y. Profit growth was aided by higher other income at Rs 2,990 crore in Q1FY16.
Net interest income, or the difference between the bank’s interest earned and expended, stood at Rs 5,115 crore in Q1FY16, 14% higher than in the same quarter of FY15. On the margin front too, the bank saw an improvement as its net interest margin (NIM) rose 14 bps y-o-y to 3.54%.
ICICI Bank’s corporate credit grew 9%, but retail assets, which constituted 43% of its loan portfolio as on June 30, saw a 25% y-o-y growth. This took its growth in domestic advances to 17% compared to the same period last year.
Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank, said that the lender is witnessing a lot of stability in assets and does not have any major restructuring pipeline.
She said bad loan accretion has fallen in the quarter because the bank focused on recoveries and has worked with promoters of companies to sell assets to reduce debt. Asset quality of the lender improved and gross non-performing loans as a percentage total loans fell 10 bps sequentially to 3.68%. The bank’s provisions were up 32% y-o-y to Rs 955 crore in Q1FY16.
“As far as credit growth is concerned, we had said that we expect to grow our domestic book between 18% and 20% and we still kind of maintain that guidance because currently our growth has been about 17% on the domestic advances ,” she said.
Total deposits increased 9.5% y-o-y to Rs 3.67 lakh crore and the bank’s current accounts savings account (Casa) ratio stood at 44.5%.