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Informist, Saturday, Apr. 18, 2026

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI – ICICI Bank lost INR 1.09 billion in the March quarter from the impact of the Reserve Bank of India's direction on Mar. 27 for authorised dealers to bring down their onshore net open positions to $100 million by Apr. 10. This contributed to a treasury loss of INR 1.06 billion during the quarter, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sandeep Bakshshi said in a call with media following the bank's Jan-Mar earnings.

ICICI Bank is the first major lender to publicly declare the impact of the norms, which were announced with only one trading day left in the quarter and financial year ended March. On Apr. 1, the regulator had doubled down on trading curbs, effectively barring authorised dealers in India from accessing the offshore non-deliverable forwards market in the rupee. These norms in tandem are expected to lead to further losses in banks' foreign exchange portfolios in the early part of financial year 2026-27 (Apr-Mar). 

Meanwhile, there was no impact on the bank's portfolio in the March quarter due to the conflict in West Asia after the US and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Bakhshi said the bank was closely monitoring the developing situation in West Asia and would use its balance sheet and strong liquidity position to ensure it keeps finding high-quality customers in FY27. In response to several questions on the impact of the war, he said he had nothing specific to call out on increased working capital loans, a slowdown in the investment activity of corporates, or any additional stress on ICICI Bank's portfolio. However, Bakhshi avoided giving further guidance on the lender's performance in FY27 in the face of the geopolitical uncertainty.

The bank was carefully assessing what risks would arise from the West Asia war for customers and its capability to lend, but said it was too soon to gauge the full impact of the war as the situation was still ongoing. At the same time, Bakhshi said the bank's net interest margin would likely remain range-bound in the current financial year despite uncertainty on liquidity, interest rates, and systemic competitiveness. In Jan-Mar, ICICI Bank's net interest margin was 4.32%, up 2 basis points from the previous quarter.

India's second-largest private sector bank reported a net profit of INR 137.02 billion for the March quarter, up 8.5% on year. Total income grew only 1.8% on year to INR 505.84 billion in Jan-Mar. Provisions declined to INR 962 million from INR 8.91 billion a year ago and INR 25.56 billion a quarter ago.

ICICI Bank did not touch any of its provisions to minimise the provisions, instead being aided by recoveries in written-off accounts from the corporate loanbook and generally good asset quality, the CEO said. Even excluding the one-time gains from such recoveries, the bank's credit cost remained under 50 bps in FY26, he said. The bank was also not seeing any fresh slippages so far from the conflict overseas.

"From our perspective, we continue to focus on risk-calibrated operating profit, which we have been saying for a long period of time," Bakhshi said. "And as the Indian economy continues to grow, we will – we should be – we do have the liquidity, the capital to leverage our franchise for good-quality customers. We remain focused on this."

The bank has also exited riskier segments in FY26 as it focussed on profitability. Its market share in credit cards had gone down earlier but has picking up picking up in recent months, Bakhshi said. ICICI Bank would also explore co-branded credit cards to reach more customers, the bank's chief said. 

LENDING, DEPOSIT

The bank's total advances were up 15.8% on year at INR 15.54 trillion as on Mar. 31, while total deposits grew only 11.4% to INR 17.95 trillion. In FY26, the RBI's decision to cut the cash reserve ratio by 1 percentage point helped ICICI Bank bridge the gap and the management doesn't see any struggle in mobiling deposits in FY27 to meet demand for credit. The aim was for deposits and credit to grow in tandem, Bakhshi said.

"And in case there is a need, we will look at borrowings in a limited fashion," the CEO said. "So, we do have enough cash, and I don't think we are going to miss out on opportunities for want of deposit growth." The bank's board renewed its debt fund raise limits of INR 250 billion domestically and $1.5 billion overseas at the board meeting to approve the financial results, which Bakhshi termed as an enabling authority at the beginning of the financial year.

The results reflected the lack of impact of the West Asia conflict so far, Bakhshi said. The bank will continue with its approach to provide 360-degree services to clients rather than target growth in specific segments of a particular portfolio mix, he said. The mortgage business has been doing well and gold loans are picking up in rural India despite these being a tiny proportion of ICICI Bank's book.

The bank is also seeing a pickup in corporate loans and healthy growth in business banking. Asked a question on higher slippages in co-lending products, the management said it would continue to pursue co-lending opportunities. ICICI Bank's co-lending portfolio is less than INR 15 billion out of the total small and medium-enterprise loanbook of around INR 9 trillion and so the overall impact on the book was negligible so far, Bakhshi said. 

The bank declared its Jan-Mar and FY26 results earlier on Saturday and also held a conference call with analysts after the media call. On Friday, its shares ended 0.1% higher at INR 1,346.80 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

Reported by Aaryan Khanna and Shumaila Firoz

Edited by Avishek Dutta

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