Kotak Mahindra Bank on Saturday beat Street estimates when its standalone net profits surged over 81 per cent to ₹6,249.82 crore from ₹3,452.30 crore in the year-ago period. Analysts were expecting the lender to report a net profit of around ₹3,700 crore.

The net profit boost came largely on account of an exceptional item of ₹3,519.90 crore. This came as the lender had in June 18 completed the divestment of a 70 per cent stake in its subsidiary Kotak Mahindra General Insurance Company Ltd (KGI) to Zurich Insurance Company Ltd.

The bank sold 553,181,595 shares of KGI for ₹4,095.82 crore, resulting in a net gain of ₹3,519.90 crore (pre-tax).

While the bank’s NII increased 10 per cent to ₹6,842 crore from ₹6,234 crore in the first quarter of last year, the net interest margin, an indicator of profitability, slipped to 5.02 per cent from 5.57 per cent in the same period of last year.

The lender attributed the decline to the curbs imposed by the RBI in April that barred it from onboarding digitally-sourced customers.

External auditor

Kotak Mahindra Bank has appointed Grant Thorton Bharat as an external auditor and its scope has been finalised in consultation with the RBI.

Ashok Vaswani, managing director and CEO, said it the company has also deployed resources from Accenture, Oracle and Infosys so that the bank is able to come out of the curbs soon.

Union Bank NII up 6.5%

Union Bank of India has reported a 13.7 per cent growth in net profit at ₹3,679 crore for the June 2024 quarter against ₹3,236 crore a year ago. Net interest income grew 6.5 per cent to ₹9,412 crore on an 11.5 per cent growth in advances.

RBL Bank net up 29%

RBL Bank’s net profit jumped 29 per cent to ₹372 crore for the June quarter against ₹288 crore a year ago. The bank’s core net interest income grew 20 per cent to ₹1,700 crore on a 19 per cent rise in advances. Net interest margin was 5.67 per cent.