ICICI Bank has reported a near three-fold growth in its standalone net profit for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, at Rs 2,025 crore compared with Rs 702 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
The growth in net profit comes despite a decline in asset quality, with net non-performing asset ratio declining to 4.89% as of March 31, 2017 compared with 3.96% in the sequential quarter (Q4FY16), and 2.67% in the same period last year. The bank also announced an issue of bonus shares in the ratio of one equity share for every 10 equity shares.
During Q42017, the additions to NPAs have been elevated. Of the additions, Rs 5,378 crore ($829 million) was due to one account in the cement sector. Additions to NPAs in Q42017, excluding the cement account were Rs 5,911 crore ($911 million) compared with Rs 7,037 crore ($1.1 billion) in Q32017, the bank said.
Net interest income grew 10.32% to Rs 5,962.16 crore during the quarter from Rs 5,404.51 crore in Q4FY16. The bank reported lower provisions during the quarter with provisions dropping 12.86% to Rs 2,898.22 crore against Rs 3,326.21 crore in the year ago period.
Gross NPAs also witnessed a significant worsening during the quarter with GNPAs during the quarter at 7.89% compared with 7.2% in the sequential quarter and 5.21% in the same period previous fiscal.
ICICI Bank managing director Chanda Kochhar exuded confidence about the bank’s loan growth performance going forward. “As far as loan growth is concerned, we expect a 15-16% growth in domestic loans, 18-20% in retail segment and 15-20% in small and medium enterprise segment,” Chanda said.
On the asset quality front, the bank believes that NPA addition should be significantly lower in FY18 compared with FY17, Chanda added.
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