ICICI Bank Q4 Results: Net profit jumps 17% to Rs 10,707 crore, asset quality stays healthy

ICICI Bank Q4 results: The bank's gross non-performing asset (NPA) stood at 2.16 percent, down from 2.81 percent recorded in the same quarter last year.

Private sector lender ICICI Bank on April 27 reported a net profit of Rs 10,707 crore for the January-March quarter of the financial year 2023-24, which marks a 17 percent jump as compared to Rs 9,122 crore clocked in the year-ago period.

The net profit is in line the market estimates of Rs 10,331 crore. The bank recommended a dividend of Rs 10 per share.

The net interest income (NII) of Rs 19,093 crore, increased by 8 percent as compared to Rs 17,667 crore reported in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal. The NII is slightly higher as against the estimates of Rs 18,958 crore.

Also read: ICICI Bank Board declares dividend of Rs 10 per share for FY24

The bank's gross non-performing asset (NPA) stood at 2.16 percent, down from 2.81 percent recorded in the same quarter last year. On the other hand, net NPA for the quarter stood at 0.42 percent compared to 0.48 percent last year.

The ICICI Bank stock ended at Rs 1,107.15 on the BSE on April 26, down 0.53 percent from the previous close.

Write back on AIF investments

The bank has done a write back of around Rs 100 crore on its provisions made to its alternative investment funds (AIFs), said Anindya Banerjee, Chief Financial Officer, ICICI Bank. “We did a write back of around Rs 100 crore from our provisions to our AIFs investments,” Banerjee said at a post results press conference on April 27.

On more investments to AIFs, Banerjee said that the bank has no plans for investments now. Earlier, the lender had made a provision of Rs 627 crore on its AIF investments.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on March 27 issued certain clarifications on its earlier guidelines on investments by lenders in alternative investment funds (AIFs), which have further investments in borrower companies linked to the lenders.

As per the clarification, the definition of downstream investments will exclude investments in equity shares of the debtor company of the lender. However, the rules will apply to all other investments, including investment in hybrid instruments.

Further, provisioning by lenders that have investments in AIFs will be required only to the extent of investment by the lender in the AIF scheme which is further invested by the AIF in the debtor company, and not on the entire investment of the RE in the AIF scheme, RBI said.

Also, investments by lenders in AIFs through intermediaries such as fund of funds or mutual funds are not included in the scope of the earlier RBI circular, RBI said.

These rules have been brought in with a view to ensuring uniformity in implementation among the lenders and to address the concerns flagged in various representations received from stakeholders, the RBI said.