Queueing up for more

Mumbai, Jan. 20: ICICI Bank Ltd today displayed a shining report card for the third quarter ended December propelled by strong growth both in core operations and in fee-based income.

The country’s largest private sector bank’s bottomline surged to Rs 640 crore, up 24 per cent against Rs 517.68 crore in the corresponding previous quarter.

Net interest income, which represents its core operations, rose 59 per cent at Rs 1,167 crore against Rs 733 crore in the year-ago period. The growth was boosted by a higher demand for credit from retail and corporate sectors.

ICICI Bank, which has the largest retail asset portfolio among Indian banks and finance companies, said its total retail disbursements for the nine-month period stood at Rs 43,200 crore, including home loan disbursements of close to Rs 17,600 crore. Retail assets constituted 64 per cent of the bank’s advances and 62 per cent of its customer assets.

Fee-based income grew 52 per cent to Rs 846 crore from Rs 558 crore in the comparable previous quarter.

Both these compensated for the fall in treasury income that came down 16 per cent to Rs 168 crore during the period.

For the nine month period, net profits increased 26 per cent to Rs 1,750 crore from Rs 1,391 crore in the same period last year.

According to ICICI Bank, its net customer assets rose 50 per cent to Rs 1,27,319 crore as on December 31 compared with Rs 84,859 crore in the same period last fiscal.

Apart from retail loans, the bank is also extending its reach in the small and medium enterprises segment. Its corporate, small and medium enterprises, rural and agri-business portfolio increased 20 per cent to Rs 32,000 crore from Rs 26,600 crore a year ago.

The bank’s net restructured assets as on December 31 stood at Rs 5,437 crore, down from Rs 6,792 crore last year.

ICICI Bank has been able to prune its net non-performing assets (NPAs) during the reporting quarter.

NPA constituted 0.80 per cent of its customer assets against 2.29 per cent last year.

During the third quarter, it sold net NPA of Rs 258 crore through the first auction of NPAs in India.

Provisions during the quarter surged to Rs 395.07 crore (Rs 108.23 crore). ICICI Bank said the Reserve Bank has increased the requirement of general provisioning on standard loans (excluding loans to agriculture sector and small and medium enterprises) to 0.40 per cent compared with 0.25 per cent.

Buoyed by the strong performance, ICICI Bank scrip gained Rs 10.40 on the BSE today to close at Rs 579.75.