More Stories

Informist, Saturday, Apr. 18, 2026

--ICICI Bank: Deposit growth healthy enough to support loan growth 

--CONTEXT: ICICI Bank mgmt's comments in post-earnings analyst call 

--ICICI Bank: Will focus on credit card business to boost fee income 

--ICICI Bank: Too early to gauge impact of West Asia war on business growth 

By Priyasmita Dutta and Nandini Sinha

NEW DELHI – ICICI Bank's capital adequacy and deposit growth are adequate to support the bank's loan growth, Sandeep Bakhshi, managing director and chief executive director, said Saturday. "We are quite comfortable on the deposit side, and current account savings account ratios are also holding up well. That should support a healthy level of loan growth," Bakhshi said in a post-earnings call with analysts. 

His comments came after financial results released earlier in the day showed that the bank's advances growth at the end of the March quarter far exceeded its deposits growth. Its deposit growth was also weaker than that of its peers such as HDFC Bank Ltd. and YES Bank. Ltd. On Friday, shares of the bank ended almost flat at INR 1,346.80 on the National Stock Exchange. 

ICICI Bank's domestic advances grew 15% year-on-year, and its deposits rose 11% on year at the end of March. Its average current account and savings account ratio was 38.6% at the end of the March quarter. As such, in the March quarter, ICICI Bank's total income was up 1.8% on year at INR 505.84 billion, the weakest rise in 19 quarters.

"Deposit growth is not something that will constrain us from pursuing loan growth. Deposit growth and flows are more than adequate and healthy," he said. The bank's Basel-III-compliant capital adequacy ratio at the end of March was 17.18%, higher than 16.55% at the end of March last year, and 15.59% end of the trailing quarter. Its average liquidity coverage ratio for the quarter was 126%, the bank's management said. 

Despite the lacklustre total income, the bank posted an 8.5% rise in its net profit for the March quarter, with the sharpest ever fall in provisions, data available with Informist showed. The private sector lender posted a net profit of INR 137.02 billion for the quarter, way higher than analysts' expectation of INR 127.97 billion. Sequentially, the net profit was up 21%, the highest sequential rise in net profit in 22 quarters. Provisions, at INR 962 million, were down 89% on year and 96% sequentially.

Within the bank's income, its fee income increased 7.5% year-on-year to INR 67.79 billion during Jan-Mar. Fees from retail, rural and business banking customers constituted about 78% of total fees in Jan-Mar, the bank said. This, Bakhshi said, could improve with the lender focusing on the credit card business to drive fee income. "On the cards and payments side, this year (FY26) has been a little slow. We have not grown as much there in terms of fees, and that would be one area for us to focus on," he said. "More recently, as the loan growth has picked up, the lending-linked fees have also picked up, and we will hopefully see that momentum sustained going forward. But this is something we will have to keep calibrating."

Speaking about the impact of the West Asia war on its business, Bakhshi said that it was too early to comment on it. However, he said the bank had identified the segments that might potentially require closer monitoring. "We are doing that, and we will calibrate our actions as we go along."

He also said that the bank expects strong business with better-rated corporate clients will help look through any short-term issues arising out of the crisis. "...and see how we can work with them over the longer term," he said. 

The management also said it would try to keep the lender's operating expenses lower than its top line growth. In the quarter ended March, its operating expenses were up over 12% while its top line was up 2%. "Our objective would be to grow revenues ahead of cost, but we will see how it evolves."  End

Edited by Avishek Dutta

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd. by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt. Ltd.

Informist Media Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2026. All rights reserved.