ICICI Bank Ltd. is expected to report healthy earnings for the quarter ended December, led by steady loan and deposit growth. However, high provisions and soft net interest income may cap the bank’s profit after tax.

The private sector bank’s bottomline is seen at Rs 11,495 crore, according to analysts polled by Bloomberg. The bank is expected to report its October-December earnings on Saturday.

ICICI Bank Q3 FY25 Estimates (Standalone, YoY)

  • Net Profit seen up 11.4% at Rs 11,448 crore.

  • NII seen rising 11% to Rs 20,663 crore.

  • Provisions seen up 56.7% to Rs 1,645 crore

Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. expects ICICI Bank’s business growth to remain healthy and cost ratios elevated. While the brokerage expects margins to witness a mild moderation, asset quality is seen steady.

“Yet another steady quarter, with steady loan growth and deposit growth. Some benefits on operational expenses might help pre-provisioning operating profit growth,” Elara Capital said in a pre-earnings note.

IDBI Capital expects net interest income to increase by 8.5% on year, PPoP and PAT by 8.9% and 8.6% on year, respectively. It has pinned loan growth at 15% on year and deposit growth at 16% on year.

The drift towards higher retail term deposit growth may push the bank’s current account and savings account ratio down, in turn impacting deposit cost as well, Elara Capital said.

The brokerage expects net interest margins of the bank to fall by 3-4 basis points sequentially, largely getting impacted from funding cost feeding into softer NII growth.

“ICICI Bank remains the best performing bank due to earnings quality. While core PAT growth could be muted at 10.6%/12.5% in FY25/26E due to NIM compression, once margins stabilise post FY26, core earnings growth could be strong at 18% YoY for FY27,” Prabhudas Lilladher said.

Most brokerages expect NIMs to either decline slightly in the third quarter or remain largely stable. Kotak Institutional Equities expects NIMs to be stable on a sequential basis at 4.2% in the December quarter.

It expects the bank’s provisions growth to be higher as the base quarter had negligible provisions. Kotak has factored in slippages of 2%, which is seasonally higher due to priority sector loans.

Analysts also remain divided on slippages, with some expecting sequential rise for ICICI Bank coming from Kisan credit cards and others expect slippages to fall because of lower stress from this book.

Overall, credit cost is seen slightly higher amid largely stable asset quality.

Analysts will keenly watch out for the management’s commentary on challenges on the ground on growth, deposits and asset quality. Outlook on NIMs and remarks on growth in the unsecured book will also be on their radar.

. Read more on Earnings by NDTV Profit.ICICI Bank’s bottomline is seen at Rs 11,495 crore, according to analysts polled by Bloomberg.  Read MoreQuarterly Earnings, Business, Notifications 

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