ICICI Bank Q4 profit jumps three fold; bad loans up 26 pct

New Delhi [India], May 4 : Country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank on Thursday announced its fourth quarter standalone profit up 188.4 percent (nearly three-fold) to Rs.

2,024.6 crore. The bank also announced a surge in its bad loans, which increased sharply due to one account in cement sector.

The profit growth is largely witnessed due to the net interest income and lower provisions. Net interest income beat analysts' expectations, growing 10.3 percent to Rs. 5,962.2 crore year-on-year, with loan growth of 6.65 percent at Rs. 4.64 lakh crore YoY and net interest margin at 3.57 percent (against 3.12 percent QoQ). The bank said that the year-on-year growth in domestic advances was 14 percent, and the retail advances grew by 19 percent that constituted about 52 percent of the loan portfolio at March 2017.

However, the asset quality deteriorated further in January-March quarter. Gross non-performing assets (NPA) as a percentage of gross advances increased 69 basis points sequentially to 7.89 percent and net NPAs rose 93 bps to 4.89 percent.

ICICI Bank also announced dividend of Rs. 2.50 per share, and an issue of bonus shares in the ratio of one equity share for every 10 equity shares (including shares underlying ADS).

Source: ANI