ICICI Bank fourth quarter profit up 15 percent, beats estimates

MUMBAI (Reuters) - ICICI Bank Ltd , India's biggest private sector lender by assets, posted a 15 percent rise in quarterly net profit, beating estimates, helped by a surge in demand for loans from retail customers and higher fee income.

Net profit in the quarter ended March rose to 26.52 billion rupees ($434.36 million) from 23.04 billion rupees a year earlier, the bank said on Friday. This was higher than the 25.5 billion rupees estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

ICICI's net interest income, the difference between interest earned and paid, grew 14.6 percent to 43.57 billion rupees in the quarter. Net non-performing loans as a percentage of total assets rose to 0.97 percent from 0.77 percent a year ago.

 

The bank's smaller rival HDFC Bank on Tuesday reported a 23 percent rise in net profit, the slowest growth in a more than a decade and slightly lower than estimates, as a weaker economy put the brakes on lending.

($1 = 61.0550 rupees)

(Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Miral Fahmy)