Mumbai, Jan. 31: Private lender ICICI Bank today reported a 19 per cent decline in its December-quarter standalone net profit at Rs 2,441.82 crore against Rs 3,018.13 crore in the year-ago period.

While the bottomline was above analysts' estimates, the country's largest private lender disappointed on the asset quality front.

Absolute gross non-performing assets (NPAs) stood at Rs 37,716.73 crore against Rs 21,149.19 crore a year ago.

The percentage of gross NPAs to gross advances rose to 7.91 per cent from 6.82 per cent in the preceding quarter and 4.71 per cent in the corresponding three-month period.

Provisions, however, dropped to Rs 2,712.70 crore from Rs 7,082.69 crore in the preceding three months.

On how deposits and advances fared in the quarter, which felt the impact of demonetisation, the bank said the year-on-year growth in domestic advances was 12 per cent. Redemptions of $1.7 billion in overseas deposits resulted in the international loan book trimming by 16 per cent, while a growth of 12 per cent in domestic book resulted in an overall credit growth of 5 per cent.

The bank continued to witness a strong growth in its retail business, a growth of 18 per cent over the previous year. The retail portfolio constituted about 49 per cent of the bank's loan portfolio as on December 31, higher than 44 per cent in the last year.

Domestic net interest margin remained almost flat at 3.51 per cent during the reporting quarter, but increased sequentially.

The fall in interest-paying assets because of the surge in NPAs also impacted the bank's net interest income, which came down to Rs 5,363 crore from Rs 5,453 crore a year ago.

While the domestic banking system witnessed a huge rise in deposits following the withdrawal of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, ICICI Bank said during the third quarter, there was an accretion of Rs 26,705 crore to current and savings account (CASA) deposits.

Of this, savings account deposits increased by Rs 18,512 crore and current account deposits grew by Rs 8,193 crore.

In percentage terms, the savings account deposits grew 30 per cent and current account deposits by 16 per cent over the last year. The CASA ratio was 49.9 per cent as on December 31, 2016, higher than 45.7 per cent as on September 30, and 45.2 per cent as on December 31, 2015.