April 18 (Reuters) - India's Yes Bank reported a 44.7% rise in fourth-quarter profit on Saturday, supported by improving loan growth and stable asset quality.
The private lender's standalone net profit rose to 10.7 billion rupees for the quarter ended March 31, from 7.3 billion rupees a year earlier.
After months of subdued growth, credit demand at Indian lenders picked up in the second half of the year, fuelled by consumption tax cuts and a recovery in corporate lending.
The private lender's loans grew 10.7% year-on-year during the quarter, accelerating from about 6.2% growth in the previous quarter, helped by a pickup in corporate lending, while deposits rose 12.1%.
Net interest income, or the difference between interest earned on advances and paid on deposits, 26.3 billion up 15.9%.
The lender, which grappled with stress in retail segments like microfinance, has started to see improvement in asset quality, with gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans improving to 1.3% at March-end from 1.5% at the end of December.
Provisions for potential bad loans fell 41% to 1.87 billion rupees.
Reporting by Nishit Navin and Ashwin Manikandan; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
Source: Reuters