Axis Bank announces results; Net profit falls 1 per cent

Axis Bank, country’s third largest private sector lender by assets, announced its Q4FY16 results on Tuesday after the market hours. Axis Bank witnessed a fall in its net profit but outperformed the street expectations.

The Total Income of the Bank for Q4FY16 stands at Rs 13592.97 crore as against Rs 12531.11 crore in the last quarter, an increase of 8 per cent. Bank’s standalone Interest earned came in at Rs 10898.96 crore this quarter as against Rs 10193.33 crore in Q3FY16, an increase of 7 per cent Q-O-Q (Quarter on Quarter). The Interest expended stands at Rs 6346.37 crore as compared to Rs 6031.27 crore for Q3FY16, an increase of 5 per cent. The Net Interest Income (NII) i.e. the difference between Interest Earned and Interest Expended stands at Rs 4552.59 crores this quarter compared to Rs 4162.06 crores in Q3FY16, an increase of 9 per cent QoQ.

However, the Net profit (PAT) has fallen from Rs 2175.3 crore in Q3FY16 to Rs 2154.28 crore in this quarter, a decrease of 1 per cent. The expected fall in net profit was around 7 per cent.

Bank’s Percentage of Gross NPA came in at 1.67 i.e. in line with the previous quarter at 1.68. Similarly, percentage of Net NPA stands at 0.7 as against 0.75 in the last quarter. There was an exceptional reduction in the bank’s NPAs in Q4FY16. Gross NPA stands at Rs 60.88 crore as compared to Rs 5724.05 crore, a decrease of 99 per cent. Net NPA came in at Rs 25.22 crore as against 2514.09 crore, a decrease of 99 per cent.

Company posted 12 per cent rise in Interest Earned and 8 per cent rise in Interest Expended from the same quarter last year. Gross NPA and Net NPA show a substantial fall of 99 per cent and 98 per cent YoY, respectively.

On a yearly basis the Bank’s standalone Interest Earned stands at Rs 40988.04 crore for the year ended March 2016 compared to Rs 35478.60 crore in March 2015, an increase of 15.5 per cent. Net profit too grew from Rs 7357.82 crore in FY15 to Rs 8223.66 crore in FY16, an increase of 11.8 per cent. Company’s Gross NPA stands at Rs 6087.51 crore as against Rs 4110.19 crore, an increase of 48.1 per cent. Net NPA came in at Rs 2522.14 crore from Rs 1316.71 crore for the year ending March 2015, an increase of 91.5 per cent.

Axis Bank recently cut its Marginal Cost based Lending Rate (MCLR) by 15 basis points to 8.95 per cent as against 9.1 per cent earlier. MCLR is the benchmark for pricing loans and will replace base rate system from April 2016 onwards.

On the day of result the stock closed at Rs 477.80, an increase of 1.68 per cent ahead of results.