ICICI Bank Quarter(Q4) Result Update:

India's biggest private sector lender by assets, said it expects the new financial year to be better in terms of bad loans, after reporting an increase in sour assets in its fiscal fourth quarter.

ICICI Bank – the country’s largest private sector lender –  registered 10.2% growth in its net profit to Rs 2922 crore for the quarter ended March as compared to Rs 2652 crore reported during the same period of the same year, mainly aided by trading gain. This was the lowest profit growth since October-December quarter of 2009, when the bank incurred a loss. Net profit numbers, however, were a tad higher than a Bloomberg estimate of Rs 2881 crore.

Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and interest expended, grew by 16.6 percent to Rs 5,079 crore during January-March quarter. Other income climbed 17.5 percent to Rs 3,496.3 crore from Rs 2,976.09 crore during the same period. Net interest margin improved to 3.57 percent in March quarter from 3.46 percent in December quarter and the same in FY15 improved to 3.48 percent compared to 3.33 percent in FY14. While addressing press conference, Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of ICICI Bank said the bank will target to maintain net interest margin at current levels of 3.57 percent. Operating profit spiked 22.8 percent on yearly basis to Rs 5,468.3 crore while operating expenses increased 8 percent to Rs 3,107.4 crore in the quarter gone by. The bank has kept tight control over its employee cost that rose 2.9 percent year-on-year to Rs 12,98.80 crore while other operating expenses jumped 11.9 percent to Rs 1,808.59 crore in March quarter.

Bad loans zoomed for the lender as more and more restructured assets slipped to the non-performing category. The gross NPA of the bank as at Rs 15,095 core or 3.78% of gross advances as compared with Rs 10,505 crore reported a year ago (3.03%).

Treasury operations was the silver lining during the quarter as the bank booked trading profit worth Rs 726 crore as compared to Rs 245 crore during the same period last year, on the back of favourable bond and equity markets. Trading gains helped its non-interest income to grow by 17%, despite a 7% growth in fee income.

The bank has seen healthy growth in retail loans, which comprises 42.5per cent of its total portfolio, with home loan growing by 26% and car loans by 25%. Overall retail loan growth ws 25% while corporate book saw 10% growth. Growth in retail loans coupled with 15% growth in low cost deposits helped the bank to improve its net interest margins by 11 bps over the previous quarter to 3.57% during Q4. For the full year, NIM was 3.48% as compared to 3.33%.

ICICI Bank has recommended a dividend of Rs 5 per share for the financial year 2014-15.