ICICI Bank on Saturday reported a 55.04 per cent jump in its June quarter consolidated net profit to Rs 7,384.53 crore, helped by a sharp reduction in provisions and the core interest income continuing to be strong.
On a standalone basis, the second-largest private sector lender reported a net profit of Rs 6,904.94 crore against Rs 4,616.02 crore in the year-ago period, but was lower than Rs 7,018.71 crore in the preceding March quarter.
Its core net interest income went up by 21 per cent to Rs 13,210 crore on the back of a 21 per cent increase in overall loans and the net interest margin widening to 4.01 per cent from 3.89 per cent in the year-ago period.
Total income on standalone basis during the April-June quarter of 2022-23 rose to Rs 28,336.74 crore, from Rs 24,379.27 crore in the same quarter in FY22.
The non-interest income was impacted by a dip in treasury gains at Rs 36 crore against Rs 290 crore in the year-ago period, while the fee income rose 32 per cent to Rs 4,243 crore.
Its overall provisions stood at Rs 1,143 crore as against Rs 2,851 crore in the year-ago period. The provisions included Rs 1,050 crore as contingent provisions over and above the mandated requirements. Its executive director Sandeep Batra told reporters that the new provisions have been set aside because of what he called as volatilities in the market.
He, however, said that the bank sees lots of opportunities to grow in India and has also reorganized its organizational structure to tap into those, which includes appointing city heads. He said the bank needs to be selective when choosing its customers to grow, and the way to pursue this objective is to look at the micro markets. On the asset quality front, the gross non-performing assets ratio improved to 3.41 per cent as of June 30 as against 5.15 per cent in the year-ago period, and 3.60 per cent in March.
The fresh slippages came at Rs 5,825 crore as against Rs 7,231 crore in the year-ago period, and continued to be driven by the retail, rural and business banking segment at Rs 5,037 crore for the reporting quarter.
Its group chief financial officer Anindya Banerjee said the number is very healthy and there is nothing concerning to call out on retail, and also attributed the high number to the pressure from Kisan Credit Cards, where the NPA recognition happens in the first and third quarters of every financial year. As per the bank’s investor presentation, the KCC portfolio slippages declined to Rs 755 crore from Rs 961 crore in the year-ago period.
The assets under resolution under various special dispensations stood at Rs 7,367 crore as against Rs 8,267 crore in the quarter-ago period. The bank has seen 73 lakh people, who are not its customers, use its mobile payments application and the third-party growth by value transacted is 35 per cent. Batra said a fair number of such customers get converted into paying customers when they like the services on offer, but declined to give a number on the conversion. It has also sold 32 lakh credit cards under a partnership with e-commerce major Amazon, the bank said.
Among the subsidiaries, its life insurance arm reported a net profit of Rs 156 crore as against a loss of Rs 186 crore in the year-ago period, the general insurance arm’s PAT grew 79 per cent to Rs 349 crore and brokerage arm’s profit declined to Rs 274 crore from Rs 311 crore.
The bank’s overall capital adequacy ratio was 18.7 per cent with the core tier-I ratio at 17.95 per cent.
