ICICI Bank posts record high quarterly profit of Rs 5,511 cr

Net NPA has fallen to the lowest level since December 31, 2014, the bank said.While net interest income grew 25 per cent year-on-year, net interest margin difference of interest earned and expended rose to 4 per cent from 3.57 per cent in the year-ago period and 3.89 per cent from the preceding quarter ended June 2021.The lender witnessed 19 per cent year-on-year growth in domestic loans during September quarter.

ICICI Bank on Saturday reported its highest ever quarterly profit on standalone basis at Rs 5,511 crore for September quarter 2021-22 on the back of healthy loan growth across verticals, aided by fall in bad loans.

The lender logged a standalone net profit of Rs 4,251 crore in the year-ago period.

''This would be the highest net profit ever...our capital is growing, the economy is growing. There are no exceptional items during this period because we have not sold anything (from subsidiaries),'' Sandeep Batra, Executive Director, ICICI Bank told reporters during a conference call.

Total income also rose to Rs 26,031 crore in July-September period of 2021-22, as against Rs 23,651 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, ICICI Bank said in a regulatory filing.

On a consolidated basis also, the lender posted its highest ever profit at Rs 6,092 crore in the quarter, as against Rs 4,882 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal year.

Total income grew marginally to Rs 39,484.50 crore in the quarter from Rs 39,289.60 crore in the year-ago period.

The bank's asset quality showed improvement as gross non-performing assets (NPAs) fell to 4.82 per cent of gross advances as of September 30, 2021 as against 5.17 per cent by the year-ago period.

Net NPAs (bad loans) too fell to 0.99 per cent from 1 per cent. Net NPA has fallen to the lowest level since December 31, 2014, the bank said.

While net interest income grew 25 per cent year-on-year, net interest margin (difference of interest earned and expended) rose to 4 per cent from 3.57 per cent in the year-ago period and 3.89 per cent from the preceding quarter ended June 2021.

The lender witnessed 19 per cent year-on-year growth in domestic loans during September quarter. The retail loans were up 20 per cent from the year-ago period. Business banking portfolio grew 43.1 per cent and SME portfolio was up 42 per cent. ''Right now we are very comfortable with the quality of book that we have. The overall mix of our portfolio, a significant portion continues to be 'A' and above (rated) category at this point of time, more than 70 per cent of our book, 70.7 per cent is in A minus and above category. On mortgages (loans), there is a fairly good mix, a lot of it comes from the retail (segment),'' Batra said. In the domestic corporate portfolio segment, the bank reported 14 per cent growth during the quarter, excluding the builder portfolio. ''Even credit cards have also done very well for us. We have grown by about 28 per cent. We will continue to acquire new customers who have better rated profiles, they are continuing to do very well for us. We are also seeing a very healthy trend...we are focussed on this business but again we will continue to grow all aspects of the business,'' the official added.

The bank's credit card business portfolio grew 28 per cent from a year ago to Rs 198,43 crore during the September quarter. ICICI Bank said it is progressively exiting exposures that are not linked to India, in a planned manner. Its overseas non-linked corporate portfolio reduced by 56.9 per cent or about USD 1.08 billion and 15.9 per cent sequentially or about USD 154 million as of September 30, 2021. Gross NPAs fell to Rs 41,437 crore, while net NPAs came down to Rs 8,161 crore. The bank said it continues to hold Covid-19 related provision of Rs 6,425 crore (0.8 per cent of advances) at the end of September quarter, which is same at the end of June 2021. There were gross additions of Rs 5,578 crore worth of NPAs during the quarter. With recoveries, upgrades and others of Rs 5,482 crore, the net additions of bad loans were of Rs 96 crore during September 2021 quarter. Talking about the bank's digital journey, Batra said as many as 40 lakh such customers are non-ICICI Bank customers. The bank had expanded its mobile banking app iMobile to iMobile Pay in December 2020, offering payment and banking services to customers of any bank. There were about 1,500,000 activations of iMobile Pay from non-ICICI Bank account holders in the second quarter, taking the total such activations to 40,00,000 within nine months of launch, the bank said. ''The transactions by non-ICICI Bank account holders in terms of value and volume respectively, were three times and 13 times higher in September 2021 compared to June 2021...The bank continues to expand the suite of services offered through iMobile Pay to achieve high engagement levels with users,'' it added.

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