ICICI Bank's Q1 FY18 profit slides, gross NPAs up

Image: Shailesh Andrade/Reuters

After Axis Bank two days earlier, another private sector bank has reported a weak set of numbers. Private lender ICICI Bank on Thursday posted a decline in standalone net profit for the quarter ended June 2017, compared to a year earlier. The earnings were weighed down by a rise in provisions and lower non-interest income.
 
ICICI Bank reported an 8.2 percent slide in profit to Rs 2,049 crore for the three months to June 2017, compared with Rs 2,025 crore a year ago. Provisions for bad loans rose 3.7 percent during the fiscal first quarter of FY18 to Rs 2,609 crore compared to Rs 2,515 crore a year earlier.
 
Non-interest income fell to Rs 3,388 crore for the latest June ended quarter compared to Rs 3,429 crore a year ago. ICICI Bank’s shares closed 1.2 percent down at Rs 307.05 at the BSE on Thursday, ahead of the earnings.
 
ICICI Bank’s net interest income—the difference between interest earned and interest expended— rose by 8 percent on a year-on-year basis to Rs 5,590 crore in the quarter ended June 30 from Rs 5,159 crore in the corresponding quarter a year earlier.
 
ICICI Bank said that gross non-performing assets as a percentage of total loans increased to 7.99 percent in the June-ended quarter from 7.89 percent in the previous three months. In absolute terms also, gross NPA rose 1.4 percent sequentially to Rs 43,148 crore but net NPA dropped 0.6 percent to Rs 25,306 crore in the quarter ended June.
 
“Addition to gross NPAs, which was Rs 4,975 crore - was the lowest in seven quarters,” ICICI Bank’s MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar told media.
 
The bank, in a conference call with the media, said that the watchlist at the end of the June quarter showed a small jump to Rs 20,300 crore compared to Rs 19,039 crore in March 2017. This could become a cause for concern in coming months.