Private sector lender IDFC First Bank on Saturday reported its Q4FY24 net profit at Rs 724 crore, lower 10% year-on-year (y-o-y), primarily due to lower trading gains and higher provisions in the reporting quarter. The net profit was lower than Bloomberg consensus estimate of Rs 756 crore for Q4.

“Net Profit for Q4FY24 stood at Rs 724 crore as compared Rs 803 crore in Q4FY23. The PAT for Q4FY23 was Rs 701 crore excluding one-time items already called out in Q4FY23,” the lender said in a release. 

During Q4FY24, the lender’s trading gains stood at Rs 32 crore, 85% lower than Rs 216 crore a year ago. According to the bank’s management commentary in Q4FY23, the lender registered certain gains from redemption of venture capital fund investments during the period, which was slightly more than Rs 200 crores, which expanded the treasury gains in previous fiscal. The lower treasury income in reporting quarter, therefore, is not strictly comparable to the previous fiscal due to one-time gain.

Further, the bank’s overall provisions rose 50% y-o-y to Rs 722 crore. This was despite improvement in asset quality, with gross and net non-performing asset (GNPA, NNPA) ratio moderating to 1.88% and 0.60% during Q4FY24 from 2.04% and 0.68% a quarter ago, respectively. 

Net interest income (NII) of the bank rose 24% YoY to Rs 4,469 crore in Q4FY24, whereas net interest margin (NIM) contracted 6 basis points sequentially to 6.36% in Q4. 

Overall advances, meanwhile, rose 25% y-o-y to Rs 2 trillion as on March 2024. Infrastructure project finance now constitutes 1.4% of total funded assets as of March end, whereas exposure to top 20 single borrowers improved from 7.0% as of March, 2023, to 5.7% as on March, 2024.  Credit-deposit (CD) ratio, despite improving to 98.4% in reporting quarter from 107% last fiscal, remains among the highest in private bank peers.

Deposit growth continued outpacing credit growth, rising 39% y-o-y to Rs 2 trillion as on March end. Low-cost current account and savings account (CASA) ratio, too, rose to 47.2% as of March 2024, from 46.8% in December quarter.

Separately, the bank’s board has approved reappointment of MD, CEO V Vaidyanathan as the bank’s chief for a period of three years after the end of his current term on December 18, 2024. The appointment is subject to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) approval.

The bank’s board has also approved raising up to Rs 5,000 crore via debt, in one more more tranches, over the next one year, and also approved granting over 54.77 million stock options under ESOP scheme to employees for FY24. Shares of the bank ended 1.7% higher at `84 apiece on the BSE Friday.