Lower provisions help ICICI bank swing to first-quarter profit

Lower provisions help ICICI bank swing to first-quarter profit

ICICI bank

ICICI Bank Ltd, India`s second-largest private lender, reported a quarterly profit on Saturday compared with a loss a year earlier, helped by lower provisions and higher retail loan growth.

Net profit for the quarter ended June 30 was 19.08 billion rupees ($277.04 million), compared with a loss of 1.20 bln rupees in the same period a year ago, the bank said in a statement.

But the profit fell slightly short of the average forecast of 20.87 billion rupees from 19 analysts, according to Refinitiv data.

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ICICI, which has been under pressure lately due to rising bad loans, said net non-performing assets at the end of the June quarter were down 51% to $1.17 billion.

Quarterly provisions fell to $507 million from $865 million a year ago.

Net interest margin, a key indicator of the bank`s profitability, was 3.61% in the quarter, compared with 3.19% in the year-ago quarter.

Earlier in the week, ICICI's peer Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd also reported a profit that fell marginally shy of estimates and joined the country`s largest private lender HDFC Bank in warning of the slowing pace of domestic growth.

The warnings from the private lenders in Asia's third-largest economy, which have been dealing with a large pile of stressed loans, have spooked investors.