ICICI Bank, India's biggest private sector lender by assets, reported a 12% rise in quarterly profit, beating estimates, and its bad loan ratio fell sequentially, sending its shares higher by more than 5%.

Net profit rose to Rs 2,976 crore ($465 million) for its fiscal first quarter to June 30, from Rs 2,655 crore reported a year earlier.

ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private sector lender, has decided to sell loans turned sour of about Rs 1,000 crore to asset reconstruction companies (ARCs).

A top executive with an ARC said the bank had put two accounts, of Falcon Tyres and Tulip Telecom, on sale. The lender has an exposure of Rs 700 crore to Tulip and Rs 300 crore to Falcon.

Mumbai: A fund being set up by ICICI Bank Ltd’s private-equity arm and Tata Power Co. is in advanced talks to acquire an electricity project from Avantha Power and Infrastructure Ltd, people familiar with the matter said.

The fund is in discussions to acquire Avantha’s Jhabua Power Ltd unit and could reach an agreement on deal terms in the next month, one of the people said, asking not to be identified as the talks are confidential. The purchase may value the business at as much as Rs.4,500 crore including debt, the people said.

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has indicated to banks that they should conduct home finance business in-house rather than duplicate the process through a wholly owned subsidiary. Following this, ICICI Bank is considering either farming out its housing finance arm — ICICI Home Finance — or rolling back into the parent bank.

Other banks with housing finance arms have already diluted stake and do not have wholly owned subsidiaries. According to sources, the RBI wants that all activities that can be done departmentally within the bank should not be done through a wholly owned subsidiary.

MUMBAI: ICICI Bank may sell its housing finance arm, ICICI Home Finance, to investors such as private equity funds, according to people close to the development. The bank may be expecting a valuation of around $700 million, or Rs 4,400 crore, according to two potential investors who have been approached.

Citibank has the mandate for the transaction, said the people cited. The bank had invited the investment bank to pitch for the mandate three months ago and the decision to appoint Citibank was taken about a fortnight back.

MUMBAI: Government owned State Bank of India and second largest private bank HDFC Bank are most active in addressing customer complaints and queries on social media while Yes Bank has the highest market share of buzz on social media, says a report released by Simplify 360. The report analysed 9 banks wherein it collected data and counting the mentions for each company on Twitter and Facebook.

ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private sector lender, has charted out an ambitious plan to grow its mobile banking transactions by up to 500 per cent by the end of this financial year.

According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, in FY15, transactions worth Rs 16,000 crore were recorded via the bank’s mobile banking platform. Rajiv Sabharwal, executive director, ICICI Bank, explained the lender is optimistic about the growth plans, considering that in the first three months, the volume of transactions recorded on the mobile banking platform was equal to what the bank had recorded in the last financial year.

Mukesh Ambani, the richest Indian and Reliance Industries (RIL) chairman and MD, has not taken a pay hike for seven years, but his pay package is over 205 times that of the median employee remuneration at RIL. This ratio stands at 439 times in case of ITC Executive Chairman Y C Deveshar.

The ratio stands much lower at 89 times in case of information technology (IT) major Wipro Chairman and Managing Director Azim Premji, and at 19 times for HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh for 2014-15.

HDFC Bank, the country’s second-largest private sector lender, has upped the focus on mobile banking transactions in the past few months as part of its strategy to transform itself into a digital bank. Now, the lender believes mobile banking will overtake internet banking by next year.

“Usage of mobiles has been growing rapidly and outpacing the growth of the internet transactions. We feel next by year it will overtake internet banking,” said Nitin Chugh, head-digital banking, HDFC Bank.

The country’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank, on Monday said it sees no impact of the Greek debt crisis on the bank as it had no exposure to Europe.

“We have no exposure in Europe and not made any finances to the companies there. So, the question of a Greek debt crisis impacting the bank, does not arise,” the bank’s managing director and chief executive Chanda Kochhar told reporters on the sidelines of its 21st Annual General Meeting. The situation might prompt Greece’s European partners to shut the door on extending a credit lifeline after the country’s surprise move to hold a referendum on bailout terms.

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