ICICI Bank on Thursday reported a 30% year-on-year (y-o-y) jump in net profit at R2,250 crore in the third quarter. The bottomline was driven up by 16% y-o-y increase in advances to R286,766 crore that resulted in a 29% y-o-y increase in net interest income to R3,499 crore. Although, the numbers beat analysts? expectations of R2,080.6 crore compiled by Bloomberg, the ICICI Bank stock fell 1.93% on the Bombay Stock Exchange to close at R1,190.85 crore.
The country?s largest private sector bank reported net interest margins (NIMs) of 3.07%, 7 basis points higher than the September quarter. ?On domestic side, NIM remained stable whereas on the international side there is scope for improvement. We will definitely maintain NIM and work towards increasing it slightly,? Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO, ICICI Bank said on a conference call.
Kochhar expects the domestic loan book to grow 20% y-o-y in the current financial year, with retail and corporate loan book growing at an equal pace.
The bank?s asset quality improved with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) sequentially down 23 basis points at 3.31%, and net NPAs falling 2 bps to 0.76%. Slippages in the quarter were to the tune of R850 crore. The net restructured assets at end of the December quarter were R4,169 crore, lower than R4,158 crore at the end of the September 2012.
ICICI Bank?s bad loan provision coverage ratio (PCR) stood at 77.7% as on December 31, 2012, the bank said in a statement.
?PCR has come down marginally in the last few quarters from around 80% to 77.7%. It is still substantially higher than RBI requirement,? the MD and CEO said.
ICICI Bank?s total income for December quarter rose 18% y-o-y to R12,352.91 crore with other income up 17% y-o-y to R2,214.62 crore.
The current account savings account (Casa) ratio rose to 40.90% at the end of the December quarter, compared with 40.7% in the previous quarter. The total outstanding deposits stood R2,86,418 crore, up 10% y-o-y. ICICI?s capital adequacy stood at 19.53% at the end of December 2012 compared with 18.88% at the end of December 2011.
