ICICI Bank on Saturday reported a 158 per cent rise in standalone net profit for the third quarter ended December 31, 2019, buoyed by lower provisions following the resolution at Essar Steel.

The private sector lender posted a net profit of Rs 4,146 crore for the quarter under review compared with Rs 1,605 crore in the year-ago quarter.

This came as provisions declined 51 per cent to Rs 2,083 crore from Rs 4,244 crore in the year-ago period. The resolution at Essar Steel saw its recoveries and upgrades (excluding write-offs) from bad loans coming in at Rs 4,088 crore in the third quarter of this financial year.

The asset quality of the private sector bank also improved with the percentage of gross NPAs to gross customer assets falling to 5.95 per cent from 6.37 per cent on a sequential basis. In absolute terms, the NPAs stood at Rs 43,453.86 crore against Rs 45,638.79 crore in the second quarter of this fiscal.

However, the good results were marred by a rise in slippages or fresh additions to bad loans.

During the quarter, the gross additions to NPAs were at Rs 4,363 crore against Rs 2,482 crore in the preceding three months.

At a conference call after the results, the bank’s management said the rise in bad loan additions was because of the exposure of the bank to a South-India based group and a brokerage.

The quarter saw ICICI Bank’s net interest income (NII-interest earned on loans minus interest paid on deposits) increasing 24 per cent over last year to Rs 8,545 crore.

The bank’s non-interest income, excluding treasury income, was Rs 4,043 crore, up from Rs 3,404 crore in the third quarter of 2011-19. Of this, fee income grew 17 per cent over the same period last year to Rs 3,596 crore from Rs 3,062 crore last year

During the quarter, the bank witnessed a 16 per cent growth in domestic advances. ICICI Bank said in a statement that it continued to leverage its strong retail franchise, resulting in a 19 per cent year-on-year growth in the retail loan portfolio.

The retail segment accounted for 52 per cent of the total portfolio at December 31, 2019, even as the growth in the domestic corporate portfolio stood at around 12 per cent. The total advances of the bank increased 13 per cent over last year to Rs 635,654 crore.