Hdfc Bank Q1 Profit Surges 33%

HDFC Bank has reported a 32.9 per cent increase in net profit for the first quarter ended June 30, 2002, to Rs 82.4 crore compared with Rs 62 crore in the corresponding quarter in the previous year.

The interest income of the bank increased by 23.42 per cent for the quarter to Rs 479.16 crore from Rs 388.21 crore.

Income from investments, which forms part of interest income, grew by 31.26 per cent to Rs 262.12 crore (Rs 199.84 crore). Other income grew by 20.90 per cent in the quarter to Rs 81.32 crore from Rs 67.26 crore.

Total deposits of the bank showed an increase of 33.3 per cent to Rs 17,602 crore as against Rs 13,209 crore in the Q1 of last year.

 

However, deposits growth showed a decline compared with March 31, 2002, when it stood at Rs 17,654 crore. This is because the bank has exited from some high-costs deposits.

"The bank has consolidated in the quarter. This has helped in reducing the cost of deposit. Margins have also improved by 10 basis point in the quarter to around 3.2 per cent. There has been a continuous growth in all the core areas," said Aditya Puri, the bank's managing director.

The capital adequacy ratio of the bank as on June 30, 2002, was at 15.08 per cent compared with 10.11 per cent the previous year.

The provisions and contingencies have also seen a growth of 46 per cent to Rs 34.62 crore as against Rs 23.63 crore the previous year.

"The bank has been making a dynamic provisioning for the retail portfolio. As the retail portfolio grows, the bank is increasing the general provisioning based on the probability of default as envisaged in the retail product," said Puri.

The retail business is likely to grow and its contribution to the bottomline is will increase. "Except for the retail products that had been launched in the last quarter all the other products are making a profit. The bank will also benefit from the infrastructure that has been added," he added.

The debit card base of the bank was at around 9 lakh while the customer account of the bank was at 2.5 million.

In the last two quarters the bank has added 40 branches to increase the branch network to 187.