Mumbai : Private sector lender ICICI Bank on Friday posted its first quarterly loss, in at least a decade, as it had to set aside more funds as provisions to cover bad loans. The June quarter loss stood at Rs 120 crore.
ICICI Bank, which is conducting internal investigation related to allegations of misconduct against its chief executive office Chanda Kochhar, had posted a Rs 2,049 crore profit a year ago and RS 1,020 crore in January-March.
The bank said that gross additions to non-performing assets were Rs 4,040 crore in April-June, the lowest in 11 quarters. However, additional provisioning for ageing of bad loans and cases referred to National Company Law Tribunal, on the directive of the Reserve of India, led to total provision of Rs 5,970 crore in the quarter. This is 129 per cent higher year-on-year but down nearly 10 per cent on a sequential basis.
Like most other lenders, ICICI Bank’s provisions also include those for marked-to-market losses on its bond portfolio because of rising yields.
The bank made the entire marked-to-market losses provisions of Rs 220 crore in April-June itself and did not use the regulatory leeway to spread them over four quarters.
The additional provision of Rs 710 crore in the quarter was for accounts referred for insolvency proceedings, which are part of the first and the second list of the RBI. With this, ICICI Bank has a total provision of Rs 9,210 crore against its outstanding of Rs 13,350 crore on these accounts.
ICICI Bank recovered and upgraded loans worth Rs 2,040 crore in the quarter, lower than Rs 4,230 crore in the previous quarter and Rs 2,770 crore in the year ago period.
Total gross NPAs stood at Rs 53,460 crore as on Junu 30 as against Rs 54,060 crore a quarter ago and Rs 43,150 crore a year ago.
