IDFC First Bank posts Rs 130 crore net profit in December quarter

IDFC First Bank on Saturday reported a net profit of Rs 130 crore for the third quarter ended on December 31, 2020.

The bank, which came into existence recently after the merger of IDFC Bank and Capital First, had reported a net loss of Rs 1,639 crore for October-December period of 2019-20.

Total income during the quarter rose to Rs 4,711.72 crore from Rs 4,679.14 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

The bank's asset quality improved as gross non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans reduced to 1.33 per cent of the gross advances as of December 31, 2020 as against 2.83 per cent by the same period a year ago.

Similarly, the net NPAs improved to 0.33 per cent from 1.23 per cent in the third quarter of previous fiscal.

The collections are improving strongly every month since July 2020 and has already reached 98 per cent of pre-COVID collections, IDFC First Bank CEO V Vaidyanathan said.

"Basis our experience in collections, a swiftly improving economy, and our provisioning policies we feel the Retail Gross and Net NPA will normalise soon and will revert to long term averages again of 2.3 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively in retail loans within 2 to 3 quarters," he said.

During the quarter, the bank made provision of Rs 595 crore as compared to Rs 2,305 crore same period of FY2020. This includes additional COVID provisions of Rs 390 crore during the quarter.

Net Interest Margin (NIM) rose to 4.65 per cent in the quarter from 3.86 per cent in the third quarter of the previous fiscal.