Private sector lender Axis Bank is all set to announce its third quarter financial results for FY24 on January 23. Analysts are anticipating its net interest to decelerate, projected to hover around 10 percent, propelled by robust credit demand.
Analysts further predict that a narrowing of margins could constrain net profit growth to the mid-single digits.
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According to estimates by Kotak Institutional Equities, Axis Bank is likely to announce a Net Interest Income (NII) of ₹12,555 crore for the October-December period, reflecting a 8.6 percent increase compared to the previous year. The net profit for Q3FY24 is projected to stand at ₹62,120 crore, marking a 6 percent year-on-year growth.
“3QFY24 is likely to be an extension of the theme that played in 1HFY24. Trends in operating profit growth are likely to be weak, though we expect earnings growth to have support from lower provisions. The provisional business data releases by a cross-section of banks suggests that loan growth has been ahead of deposit growth. Treasury gains is likely to be negligible. Asset quality is likely to remain in a sweet spot, leading to lower slippages, but recovery and upgrades are likely to lower as well. We expect banks to report a 15-20 bps decline in NIMs. While loan yields have limited room for expansion, we see deposit costs likely to re-price higher. A key discussion would be trends in deposit mobilization, as it has lagged loan growth. This would have a bearing on our NIM forecasts, given the sensitivity of the policy rates on NIM,” said Kotak Institutional Equities in its report.
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Increased cost of funds or higher borrowing costs are expected to exert downward pressure on the bank’s profit margins for the quarter. Axis Bank’s net interest margins (NIMs) are projected to decrease to 3.9 percent in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2024, compared to 4.1 percent in the same period of the previous fiscal year (Q3FY23).
Analysts at Motilal Oswal said that the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) ratio may improve to 1.7 per cent in Q3 FY24 as compared to 2.4 per cent a year ago in the same period. Meanwhile, Net NPA is also expected to improve to 0.4 in the quarter ended on December 31, 2023.
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Published: 22 Jan 2024, 10:31 PM IST