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ICICI Bank Q4 net profit up 15% at Rs 2,652 cr; 35% jump in fee income

ICICI Bank’s loan book grows 17 pct to Rs 3.4 trillion; provisions for bad loans rise 55 pct.

ICICI Bank Ltd, India’s largest private sector lender, today posted 15 per cent growth in standalone net profit at Rs 2,652 crore for the fourth quarter of last fiscal on a healthy rise in non- interest income, but asset quality limited the bottomline growth of India’s largest private lender.

On a consolidated basis, net profit grew 9 per cent to Rs 2,724 crore in Q4, 2013-14. For the entire fiscal, the profit expanded 15 per cent to Rs 11,041 crore.

The core net interest income in Q4 grew 15 per cent to Rs 4,357 crore, while the non-interest income was up 35 per cent to Rs 2,976 crore, ICICI Bank Managing Director and CEO Chanda Kochhar said in the results conference call.

Under the other income head, fee income grew 12 per cent to Rs 1,974 crore; treasury income stood at Rs 245 crore; dividend from subsidiaries was Rs 541 crore, while exchange rate gains on repatriation of retained earnings from overseas branches helped with Rs 222 crore.

The gross non-performing assets ratio was flat on a sequential basis at 3.03 per cent, even though it had fresh slippages of Rs 1,241 crore. Recovery of Rs 400 crore helped the bank maintain the NPA numbers flat.

The bank wrote off Rs 700 crore of bad assets during Q4, 2013-14, Kochhar said.

The bank added Rs 2,156 crore to its restructured assets, taking the total recast book to Rs 10,558 crore, she said, adding that it has a pipeline of another Rs 1,500 crore for restructuring.

These factors resulted in a heavy increase in the provisioning for bad assets, which moved up to Rs 714 crore in Q4 from Rs 460 crore a year ago, hurting the bottomline.

On asset quality outlook, Kochhar hinted that the worst is over, saying the bank is at the peak on NPAs and addition to bad assets and restructured assets will be lower in 2014-15.

The bank posted advances growth of 17 per cent in 2013-14, driven by 23 per cent expansion in retail assets, while the policy of calibrated approach on the corporate loans resulted in the wholesale book growing by only 8 per cent.

For FY’15, Kochhar said she expects asset book to outpace the system by 2-4 per cent and end up in the 18-20 per cent mark. Advances growth will continue to be driven by retail, she added.

The bank’s net interest margin in Q4 was almost flat at 3.35 per cent, but improved by 0.22 per cent for the entire fiscal to 3.33 per cent.

Kochhar said the bank will aim to maintain the margin at current levels.

The share of the low-cost current and saving account (CASA) deposits was at 42.9 per cent as on March 31, while the average for the quarter was 39 per cent, she said.

For the entire 2013-14 fiscal, the lender’s cost to income ratio reduced to 38.2 per cent from the year ago’s 40.5 per cent on a tighter look at cost factors and increasing income, Kochhar said, adding that the bank will focus to keep the ratio at the 38 per cent levels in FY15.

Among the subsidiaries, PAT from the life insurance business grew to Rs 1,567 crore in FY14 from Rs 1,496 crore, while the same for the general insurance business rose to Rs 511 crore from Rs 306 crore in FY13.

ICICI Bank Q4 standalone profit up 15 pct at Rs 26.52 bn

(Reuters) ICICI Bank Ltd, India’s biggest private sector lender by assets posted a 15 percent rise in quarterly net profit, beating estimates, helped by rising demand for loans from retail customers and higher fee income.

ICICI’s net profit in the quarter ended March rose to 26.52 billion rupees ($434.36 million) from 23.04 billion rupees a year earlier, the bank said on Friday. This was higher than the 25.5 billion rupees estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Indian banks have recently shifted their focus from corporate lending to consumer debt in a bid to avoid an increase in bad loans by companies struggling in a economy growing at its slowest pace in a decade.

ICICI said its loan book grew an annual 17 percent to 3.4 trillion rupees as of end of March. Retail loans grew faster at 23 percent.

ICICI’s net interest income, the difference between interest earned and paid, also rose 14.6 percent to 43.57 billion rupees in the quarter. Net interest margin for the quarter was 3.35 percent.

Indian banks have seen a surge in loan defaults over the past year, and have also started to boost provisions. ICICI said its provisions for bad loans had risen more than 55 percent in the March quarter from the same year ago period to 7.14 billion rupees.

Net non-performing loans as a percentage of total assets rose to 0.97 percent during the quarter from 0.77 percent a year in the same year-ago period, but they remained below the sector average of around 4 percent in 2013.

Shares in ICICI, which has a market value of nearly $25 billion, were down 2.6 percent at 0819 GMT, underperforming a 0.7 percent fall in the banking sector index and a 0.8 percent fall in the main index.

The bank’s smaller rival HDFC Bank on Tuesday reported a 23 percent rise in net profit, the slowest growth in a more than a decade and slightly lower than estimates, as a weaker economy put the brakes on lending.

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First published on: 25-04-2014 at 13:59 IST
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