HDFC’s Q4 net profit jumps by 43% as soured debt provisions drop

Although HDFC has been less impacted by the virus compared to its peers, India’s shadow lending sector was significantly weakened by an ongoing crisis since 2018 after the failure of a large infrastructure financier.

Housing Development Finance Corp., India’s largest mortgage financier, posted a 43% rise in the fourth-quarter profit helped by a fall in bad loan provisioning.

The headquarters of India's HDFC bank is pictured in Mumbai. (REUTERS)

The Mumbai-based shadow lender’s net income stood at 31.8 billion rupees ($432 million) for the quarter ended March compared with 22.3 billion rupees a year ago. That beat an average estimate of 29.2 billion rupees by 11 analysts in a survey conducted by Bloomberg.

Although HDFC has been less impacted by the virus compared to its peers, India’s shadow lending sector was significantly weakened by an ongoing crisis since 2018 after the failure of a large infrastructure financier. The second coronavirus wave with record high daily infections and deaths has led to local lockdowns, hurting businesses and jobs.

The Reserve Bank of India announced a new round of measures this week to help lenders and businesses through a deadly surge in coronavirus infections. These include allowing lenders to restructure loans to small businesses until the end of September. HDFC set aside 7.2 billion rupees as provision for impaired loans in the March quarter compared to 12.7 billion rupees a year ago.

The financier’s board also approved a plan to raise as much as 1.25 trillion rupees ($17 billion) via bonds in the current financial year, it said in the filing.