MUMBAI
ICICI Bank Ltd, India’s No. 2 lender by assets, said its third-quarter net profit fell 19 per cent as bad loans rose, although the profit decline was smaller than expected. Net profit fell to Rs24.42 billion (Dh1.32 billion, $360 million) for the three months to December 31, from Rs30.18 billion reported a year earlier, the Mumbai-based lender said on Tuesday. That was higher than an average forecast of Rs21.7 billion from a poll of 23 analysts, Thomson Reuters data shows. Bad loans as a percentage of total loans rose to 7.91 per cent at the end of December, from 6.82 per cent at the end of September and 4.72 per cent a year ago.
