ICICI Bank net up 2.5%

ICICI Bank on Friday said its consolidated net profit rose 75.7 per cent to Rs 1,144.6 crore in the quarter ended September on the back of a good show by its subsidiaries.

The financial services group’s total income was 6.4 per cent lower at Rs 14,595.85 crore, compared with Rs 15,590.5 crore during July-September 2008.

All subsidiaries, which have a sizeable amount of business linked to stock markets, put up a better show. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance managed to pare its losses.

On a standalone basis, ICICI Bank’s net profit rose 2.56 per cent, as the country’s largest private sector lender managed to counter a fall in income through tighter expenditure control. What helped was treasury income of Rs 297 crore as against a loss of Rs 153 crore on this account in the corresponding period of last year.

While total income fell 12.7 per cent to Rs 8,480.7 crore, other income dropped 2.85 per cent to Rs 1,823 crore. Interest income was 15 per cent lower at Rs 6,656.9 crore. ICICI’s net interest income — the difference between interest earned and paid — fell 5.2 per cent to Rs 2,036 crore and net interest margin, a key measure of efficiency, rose to 2.5 percent. Lower merger and acquisitions-related activity meant that income from fees fell over 26 per cent to Rs 1,387 crore.

The bank, however, managed to pare expenses by 18.6 per cent to Rs 6,045 crore as interest payments and operating expenses fell. A key driver of an 18 per cent fall in operating expenses (Rs 1,424.5 for the second quarter of the current year) was decline in payments to direct sales agents as the bank worked on lowering the share of personal loans. DSA-related expenses fell from Rs 145 crore in July-September last year to Rs 21 crore.

While retail loans accounted for 45 per cent of total advances of Rs 190,860.2 crore, the share of unsecured loans dropped to 6.3 per cent.

As a result of expenditure control, standalone operating profit rose 6.6 per cent to Rs 2,433 crore.

There was, however, a 16 per cent rise in non-tax provisions, which rose Rs 1,071 crore. The bank managed a 3.16 per cent drop in gross non-performing assets to Rs 9,200 crore. Net NPAs, however, went up by 6.3 per cent to Rs 4,500 crore.

The other good news was increase in share of low-cost current and savings account balances (Casa). The share of these deposits in the overall deposit base rose to 36.9 per cent, compared with 28.7 per cent a year ago and 30 per cent at the end of June. What helped ICICI Bank’s Casa cause was an 11.45 per cent decline in deposit base to Rs 1,97,832 crore.

The bank’s loan book continued to shrink and declined 14 per cent to Rs 190,860.2 crore from Rs 221,984.7 crore a year ago. This came at a time when credit growth for the banking system was 10.8 per cent for the year up to October 9.

The bank saw a 23.5 per cent increase in investments, which touched Rs 1,19,965 crore.