HDFC Bank bucks trend, reports 7.4% rise in deposits in March-qtr

5| HDFC Limited: Rs 4.12 trillion

HDFC Bank has bucked what was emerging as a trend of private-sector lenders facing a fall in deposit base during the March quarter.

The largest private sector lender has reported a 7.41 per cent increase in aggregate deposits during the January-March period to Rs 11.46 lakh crore, which was 24 per cent higher as compared to March 31 last year.

HDFC Bank said its advances have risen by around 21 per cent to Rs 9.93 lakh crore as of March 31 and have grown by over 6 per cent for the March quarter as compared to December-end.

It purchased Rs 5,479 crore of loans from parent mortgage lender HDFC during the quarter, the bank said in an intimation to stock exchanges late on Friday.

Starting with Yes Bank, which had to be bailed out by the government and RBI, a slew of lenders in the category including RBL Bank and IndusInd Bank have reported a fall in their deposit base in varying degrees.

Many of the lenders have blamed the pullouts by state governments or related-entities for the troubles.

Following the Yes Bank crisis, depositors were anxious about the health of private sector banks and the ones which seem to have reported some stress in books lately bore the brunt.

The heavy fall in share prices -- attributed initially to the Yes Bank fiasco and later to global volatility triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic -- only added to the depositors' fears.

States like Maharashtra came out with an official resolution advising all arms against banking with the private sector lenders, despite RBI's pleas on the contrary.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das has also said the banking system is absolutely safe and urged all not to shun private-sector lenders.

Following the spate of concerns, many banks have been reporting a partial set of numbers since the end of March, to allay potential fears among stakeholders, before they come out with their final numbers.

On a recent conference call, HDFC Bank's Managing Director Aditya Puri had recently said that the dip in economic activity may result in a quarter of muted growth but asserted that there are no issues with the portfolio quality.