ICICI Bank surges 6% after it posts six-fold jump in net profit at over ₹4,200 crore

• ICICI Bank’s share price is up 6% as the stock market tips its hat to the bank’s highest-ever net profit of over ₹4,200 crore at the end of September.
• The bank announced its second-quarter results on Saturday with an optimistic note of the Indian economy getting back on track.
• Mortgage disbursements beat the pre-COVID level to hit an all-time high in September.

The markets are cheering for ICICI Bank with its share price up 6% after it reported its highest-ever quarterly net profit of ₹4,250 billion on Saturday, October 31. That’s 6.5 times higher than what the bank’s profit was a year ago in the same quarter.


“We have been focused on risk-calibrated granular growth that has been there for the past couple of years has helped us grow the underlying profits, that’s the reason for the after tax number for the quarter,” said ICICI Bank CFO Rakesh Jha during the second-quarter earnings call.

ICICI Bank is one of the few banks in the Indian market that is optimistic about how the future will play out. While its peers laid in cautious commentary and guarded predictions of the future, ICICI Bank was clear in its stance that the Indian economy is getting back on its feet during the second-quarter earnings call.

However, ICICI Bank’s numbers weren’t solely based on the turnaround of the Indian economy — the sale of its stake in ICICI Securities worth ₹305 crore helped.

According to the bank, it has seen credit card spends have returned to 85% of pre-COVID levels. Mortgage disbursements, on the other hand, beat pre-COVID levels to reach an all-time high in September. Auto loan disbursements and disbursements across ICICI Bank’s rural portfolio also exceeded pre-COVID levels at the end of September.

The management believes that pandemics are also short-term, so even COVID-19 will eventually blow over. Although there’s no vaccine on the market yet, people are getting used to going back to work with the relevant precautions in place, which means more business activity —- which, in turn, is good news for the bank.

Even though it hasn’t had to use any of its COVID-related provisions yet, ICICI Bank is still keeping ₹8,772 crore in its coffers to cushion its balance sheet.