Bajaj Finance: June quarter disappoints, all eyes now on collections

Higher provisioning in line with priority to mitigate balance-sheet risk

The top line of Bajaj Finance in the June 2020 quarter (Q1) was better than Street estimates, but the lender lagged on the profit front because of Covid-19-led increase in credit cost.

The consumer finance major reported a 12.4 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase in consolidated net interest income to Rs 4,152 crore, beating consensus estimate of Rs 3,638 crore. But, a threefold rise in bad loan provisioning saw profit before tax fall 29.3 per cent YoY to Rs 1,310 crore, 35 per cent lower than the expectation of Rs 2,019 crore.

The company made additional provisioning of Rs 1,450 crore in