Kotak Mahindra Bank Q4 net profit up 15% to Rs 1,055 crore

Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) on Wednesday reported a 15.62% jump in March quarter net at Rs 1,055.23 crore driven by a rise in core interest income.

The Uday Kotak-led bank, which merged with ING Vysya Bank in a Rs 15,000 crore deal on April 1 last year, had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 912.60 crore in the year-ago period.

For the entire fiscal, its first as a larger merged entity, the bank posted a net profit of Rs 3,458.85 crore, up from the year ago's Rs 3,045.45 crore. On a standalone basis, the fourth quarter net was up almost 32 per cent to Rs 695.78 crore.

The net interest income for the bank was up by over 65% to Rs 1,857 crore, helped largely by an expansion in the net interest margin to 4.35%. Other income rose over 50% from the last year to Rs 681.91 crore, but was down compared to Rs 722.16 crore in the preceding December quarter.

Kotak, the vice chairman and managing director, told reporters that the process of integration of businesses will get complete by June 2016.

It is targeting a credit growth of up to 20% in 2016-17, and will look at both the retail and wholesale segments for growth, he said.

Even though the bank was comfortable on the asset quality front -- the gross NPA ratio moved up just 6 basis points to 2.36% -- Kotak said recovery process for stressed assets from ING Vysya Bank is very tough, hurt by multiple factors like sluggish economic growth and the legal system.

Its overall provisions reduced to Rs 200 crore from Rs 235 crore in December quarter, and Kotak said the bank is targeting to halve the credit costs to under 0.45% this fiscal from the 0.83% achieved in 2015-16, which is representative of a post-integration normalisation.

In a first for any bank, KMB today disclosed that Rs 153 crore of its assets, accounting for 0.13% of the loan book, have been categorised as 'Special Mention Account 2', wherein borrowers of over Rs 5 crore have not paid for over 60 days but the account is not NPA.

Share of the low-cost current and savings account deposits improved to 38%, but Kotak reiterated that the bank has no plans to go back on its offering of six% interest rate on savings bank deposits.

The overall capital adequacy stood at 16.3% with the core tier-I ratio at 15.3%, he said, adding that the bank does not have any capital raising plans for the fiscal.

The scrip closed 1.34% up at Rs 731.15 a piece on the BSE, as against a 0.68% dip in the 30-share benchmark.