ICICI Bank September quarter profit rises 36% on lower provisions, healthy loan book

ICICI Bank Q2 earnings: ICICI Bank, the country's second largest private sector lender, on Saturday reported that its net profit in second quarter of current financial year rose 36 per cent annually on the back of lower provisions for bad loans and strong growth in its loan book.

ICICI Bank's net profit came in at Rs 10,261 crore for quarter ended September 30 compared with Rs 7,558 crore during the same period last year.

The profit figure was sharply higher than analysts' forecast of Rs 9,626 crore, according to LSEG data.

ICICI Bank's provisions witnessed a sharp decline in the September quarter as it reported provisions of Rs 583 crore as against Rs 1,645 crore during the same period last year and Rs 1,292 crore in the previous quarter. At the same time, ICICI Bank registered healthy loan growth of 19.3 per cent with its retail loan portfolio showing an annual growth of 21.4 per cent.

The Mumbai-based lender's net interest income or difference between interest earned on loans and expended on deposits jumped 24 per cent to Rs 18,308 crore from Rs 14,787 crore.

Its net interest margin (NIM) came in slightly lower at 4.53 per cent compare with 4.78 per cent in the previous quarter.

The bank's asset quality saw an improvement as its gross non-performing assets (NPA) ratio declined to 2.48 per cent as on September 30, 2023 from 2.76 per cent in the previous quarter. The net NPA ratio declined to 0.43 per cent at the end of second quarter from 0.48 per cent in the previous quarter.

ICICI Bank shares ended 0.3 per cent lower at Rs 932 ahead of its earnings announcement.