(India) – India’s largest private bank, ICICI Bank, has produced an annual net profit of 2.58 billion rupees (US$52.7 million) based on revenues of 27.27 billion rupees and growth in bond trading and fee income.The bank, with $20 billion plus in assets, is the country’s first “universal” bank, providing a one-stop outlet for financial services.
As India’s second largest commercial bank with 500 branches, three times smaller than the State Bank of India (9,000 plus branches), bad loan provisioning has crimped profits. Nearly 10 billion rupees that would have been ICICI’s net profit prior to its merger in March have been used to write off its bad loans.