ICICI Bank Q2 net rises 19%, beats forecast

MUMBAI: ICICI Bank, India's No. 2 lender, reported an 18.8 percent rise in quarterly net profit, beating brokerage forecasts, helped by credit growth and drop in provision for bad loans.

Indian banks including rival private-sector lender HDFC Bank are seeing strong loan demand in Asia's third-largest economy, which the International Monetary Fund expects to expand 9.7 percent in 2010.

ICICI Bank said its net profit in July-September, its fiscal second quarter, rose to Rs 1,236 crore ($278 million) from Rs 1,040 crore reported a year earlier.

A Reuters poll of analysts had forecast net profit of Rs 1,169 crore. State Bank of India , the country's top lender, and ICICI and HDFC Bank are seeing an improvement in asset quality on strong revival in business and consumer confidence in India.

HDFC Bank last week met street estimates with a 33-percent rise in quarterly net profit and forecast credit growth at more than 20 percent in this fiscal year.

Shares in ICICI Bank, valued at about $27 billion, have risen 26 percent so far this year, compared with a 38 percent jump in the sector index and 15 percent gain in the main Mumbai market.