ICICI Bank not directly hit by subprime crisis: Kochhar

Mumbai, Apr 26 (UNI) Asserting that the ICICI Bank is not directly hit by the subprime crisis in the US, Bank joint MD and CFO Chanda Kochhar today said some of the corporates with which it had negotiated derivative assets, had suffered some losses.

Declining to comment on the mark to market losses the corporates had suffered in the derivative assets, Ms Kochhar told newspersons here while announcing the results for fiscal 2008 that the Bank had provided for USD 100 million in the fourth quarter.

However, it had made good around USD 16 million between April 1 and April 23 due to the tightening of the deritivatives trade, she added.

She said that the Bank's profits for FY 2008 crossed the US dollar billion at Rs 4158 crore, up by 34 per cent from Rs 3110 crore. In Q4, the Bank had earned a PAT of Rs 1150 crore, up by 39 per cent from Rs 825 crore earned during the corresponding period previous fiscal.

She said nearly 25 per cent of the total business and the PAT came from overseas business.

Stating that the corporate performance continued to be strong with high cash accruals supporting investment plans, she said the Bank had an investment pipeline of about USD 700 billion. She said the consolidated advances of the Bank and its overseas banking subsidiaries and ICICI Home Finance Company increased 19 per cent to Rs 252,071 crore last fiscal from Rs 211,660 crore the previous year. She expected the credit growth for the current year to be at the same level. Standalone credit offtake of ICICI Bank was around 15 per cent with the retail segment getting three per cent and the corporate sector 20 per cent. The retail percentage was net of some of the assets the Bank had disposed off.

Bank Chairman and Managing Director K V Kamath said the net interest income rose by 30 per cent for the last fiscal to Rs 7304 crore from Rs 5637 crore in FY 2007. The fee income saw a 32 per cent jump to Rs 6627 crore from Rs 5012 crore in FY 2007.

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