ICICI Bank announces 34% jump in Q3 profit

Bloomberg

ICICI Bank Ltd. reported 34% growth in profit, helped by surprise improvement in interest margin as lenders in the country continue to report stellar performance, backed by rising demand for loans.
Net income was 83.1 billion rupees ($1 billion) in the quarter ended December compared with 61.9 billion a year ago, the company said in a statement. That beat the average estimate of 80.5 billion rupees in a Bloomberg survey. The bank’s net interest margin was also ahead of the consensus view.
ICICI, a large player in retail loans in the world’s second-most populous country, joins peers profiting from booming demand for credit. While Indian lenders are sitting on plenty of liquidity, they are having to contend with rising cost of funds as they struggle to collect deposits at cheaper rates.
Deposits grew 10% year-on-year to 11.2 trillion rupees in the December quarter, down from the 16% growth at the prior year. Meanwhile, the bank’s retail loans portfolio, which accounts for more than half of its total advances, rose 23.4% from a year ago and 4.5% from preceding three
month period.
Net interest margin of the bank was at 4.65% in December quarter, compared to 4.31% in the September quarter of 2022, also ahead of
consensus estimate of 4.36%.
The bank’s asset quality improved in 2022 and its gross-bad loan ratio declined to 3.07%, from 3.19% three-months ago and 4.13% a year ago.