ICICI Bank Q2 net profit up 20 percent, beats estimates

MUMBAI (Reuters) - ICICI Bank Ltd, India's largest private-sector lender by assets, posted a 20.1 percent rise in second-quarter profit, beating analyst estimates, led by higher credit growth and income from fees.

Net profit for July-September was 23.5 billion rupees compared with 19.6 billion a year earlier, the bank said on Friday. Net interest income, or the difference between interest earned and paid, rose about 20 percent to 40.4 billion rupees.

The mean profit estimate of 23 analysts was 21.9 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net interest margin, a gauge of profitability for banks, expanded to 3.31 percent during the quarter from 3 percent a year earlier.

 

Net non-performing loans, as a percentage of total assets, rose to 0.85 percent from 0.82 percent in the prior quarter.

(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Christopher Cushing)