WhatsApp Pay goes live in India with four banks

WhatsApp Pay on Wednesday announced it is now live with State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank for its up to 20 million users in India. After two years of waiting, Facebook-owned WhatsApp payment service received approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in November to go live on Unified Payment Interface (UPI) with over 160 supported banks.

WhatsApp can expand its UPI user base in a graded manner starting with a maximum registered user base of 20 million. "UPI is a transformative service and we jointly have the opportunity to bring the benefits of our digital economy and financial inclusion to a large number of users who have not had full access to them before," Abhijit Bose, Head of WhatsApp, India, said during the Facebook 'Fuel for India' virtual event.

The peer-to-peer (P2P) payment feature is available now in 10 Indian regional language versions of WhatsApp.

"We introduced banking services on WhatsApp in April. Over two million users have adopted banking services on WhatsApp in this short span. Now with WhatsApp Payments, there is a unique opportunity to scale essential financial services to people all over the country with ease," said Bijith Bhaskar, Head - Digital Channels & Partnership, ICICI Bank.

According to a latest report by Bengaluru-based research firm RedSeer, digital payments in India are expected to reach $94 trillion by the financial year 2025.

"We're excited and privileged to partner with State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and AXIS Bank to bring simple and secure digital payments to WhatsApp users across India," Bose said in a statement.

SBI now offers UPI services through the WhatsApp Payments, bringing the convenience of easy and instant mobile based payments.

Parag Rao, Country Head-Payments Business, Consumer Finance, Digital Banking & Marketing, HDFC Bank said that the partnership with WhatsApp Pay is yet another important step toward achieving financial inclusion and making affordable financial services available to Indians.

"Such partnerships will further fuel the economic growth and development of the nation," Rao added.

WhatsApp had said earlier that the payments feature is designed with a strong set of security and privacy principles, including entering a personal UPI PIN for each payment.

In India, the WhatsApp payment service competes against major players like Paytm, Google Pay and PhonePe, among others.

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Overall Comparison of Top 8 Banks in India

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Axis bank Q1 profit falls 19%

The country's third-largest private sector lender Axis Bank has reported an 18.8 percent year-on-year decline in standalone profit for the June quarter, impacted by lower other income and higher provisions.

Profit during the quarter declined to Rs 1,112.17 crore compared to Rs 1,370.08 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Net interest income (NII) grew by 19.5 percent year-on-year to Rs 6,985.3 crore in the quarter, with a strong loan growth of 17 percent (including TLTRO investments) and deposits growth of 19 percent on quarterly average basis (QAB).

The private lender's savings account deposits grew 15 percent YoY, current account deposits 8 percent and retail term deposits (RTD) were up 27 percent on QAB basis, while including TLTRO (Targeted Long Term Repo Operations) investments, corporate loans grew 26 percent and retail loans 16 percent.

Other income or non-interest income (comprising fee, trading profit and miscellaneous income) for Q1FY21 declined 33.1 percent to Rs 2,587 crore YoY as fee income fell 38 percent YoY to Rs 1,651 crore, the bank said. The bank attributed the decline in fees to lower business volumes and velocity of throughput of transactions.

Pre-provision operating profit (PPoP) declined 0.8 percent to Rs 5,844.4 crore compared to the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal.

"Adjusted for accounting policy changes and NII reserves created during the quarter, NII, operating profit and PAT for the quarter would have been Rs 7,100 crore, Rs 6,151 crore and Rs 1,626 crore, respectively, growing by 22 percent, 4 percent and 19 percent YoY, respectively," Axis Bank said in its BSE filing.

Asset quality has seen improvement on sequential as well as yearly basis. Gross non-performing assets as a percentage of gross advances declined 14 bps QoQ to 4.72 percent and net NPAs dropped 33 bps QoQ to 1.23 percent in June quarter 2020.

Axis Bank said it recognised slippages of Rs 2,218 crore during Q1FY21, compared to Rs 3,920 crore in Q4FY20.

"Slippages from the loan book were at Rs 2,011 crore and that from investment exposures stood at Rs 207 crore. Corporate slippages stood at Rs 1,355 crore. Recoveries and upgrades from NPAs during the quarter were Rs 608 crore while write-offs were Rs 2,284 crore," it added.

Provisions and contingencies were higher by 15.8 percent to Rs 4,416.42 crore at the end of June quarter 2020, but were lower by 42.9 percent compared to the March quarter.

The bank said it had made incremental provisions of Rs 733 crores in Q1 FY21 towards COVID-19. "In June 2020, the bank holds in aggregate additional provisions of Rs 6,898 crore. It is pertinent to note that this is over and above the NPA provisioning included in our PCR calculations, and the 0.4 percent standard asset provisioning requirement on standard assets."

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Axis Bank posts surprise loss in Q4 owing to Covid-19 provisions

Axis Bank Ltd, India's third biggest private-sector lender, on Tuesday reported a surprise ₹1,388 crore loss for the fourth quarter, as it set aside funds to cover potential loan losses due to the coronavirus-driven downturn.

The Mumbai-based Axis booked provisions of ₹7,730 crore for the quarter, or nearly three times higher than last year, including ₹3,000 crore towards COVID-19, the lender said in a regulatory filing.

Analysts had expected a profit of ₹1,556 crore for the three months to March 31, according to Refinitiv data, compared to a reported profit of ₹1,505 crore a year earlier.

However, gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans, a measure of asset quality, eased to 4.86% at March-end from 5% in the previous quarter.

It had reported a profit of ₹1,757 crore in the October to December quarter (Q3FY20).

The net interest income in Q4FY20 grew by 19 per cent year-on-year to ₹6,808 crore while operating profit was up by 17 per cent to ₹5,851 crore.

On the asset quality front, net NPAs declined to 1.56 per cent in the quarter ended March.

Provisions and contingencies during the quarter stood at ₹7,730 crore, increasing significantly from ₹2,711 crore year-on-year and ₹3,471 crore quarter-on-quarter.

For the entire year 2019-20, the net profit was ₹1,627 crore compared to ₹4,677 crore in the year ended March 2019. Adjusted for the one-offs, net profit for FY20 would have been ₹5,182 crore. up 11 per cent year-on-year, the lender said.

The net interest income in FY20 grew by 16 per cent year-on-year to ₹25,206 crore.

As on March 31, the bank's gross NPAs stood at ₹30,234 crore and net NPAs at ₹9,360 crore. The bank's provision coverage as a proportion of gross NPAs stood at 69 per cent.

Managing Director and CEO Amitabh Chaudhry said the COVID-19 crisis is a long drawn one and it will need courage, grit and a fighting spirit to combat it.

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Axis Bank Q3 net profit up 4.5%, misses estimates

Axis Bank Ltd on Wednesday said its net profit rose 4.5% year-on-year to ₹1,680.85 crore on the back of higher net interest income. Net profit was, however, lower than the ₹2,073.4 crore estimated by 22 analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Net interest income, or the difference between interest earned on loans and that paid on deposits, increased 15.16% to ₹6,452.98 crore from ₹5,603.67 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Other income, which includes core fee income, fell 5.35% on year to ₹3,786.57 crore in the three months ended December.

Gross non-performing assets (NPAs), as a percentage of total advances, were at 5% in the December quarter compared with 5.03% in the September quarter and 5.75% in the year-ago December quarter.

Provisions during the quarter increased 13.6% to ₹3,470.92 crore as against ₹3,054.51 crore in the year-ago quarter. In the July-September quarter, the bank had set aside ₹3,518.39 crore in provisions.

Post provisions, net NPA ratio was at 2.09% against 1.99% in July-September and 2.36% in the year-ago quarter.

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Axis Bank reports loss in Q2FY20, Asset quality improves

Reporting a net loss of Rs 112.1 crore, Axis Bank posted a below expectation September quarter numbers of the financial year 2020 on October 22.

The bank reported a profit of Rs 789.61 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year whereas, in the June quarter of FY20, the bank's profit was Rs 1,370.08 crore.

The CNBC-TV18 poll estimated a profit of Rs 668.3 crore for the September quarter of FY20.

The bank said it had incurred a loss in Q2 due to a one-time tax impact of Rs 2,138 crore on change in the corporate tax rate. "Excluding of this extraordinary item, PAT would have been Rs 2,026 crores, up 157 percent year-on-year (YoY)," Axis Bank said.

The net interest income (NII) jumped 17 percent YoY at Rs 6,102 crore against the CNBC-TV18 poll of Rs 5,979.8 crore. The net interest margin (NIM) stood at 3.51 percent, the highest in the last nine quarters.

The asset quality remained largely stable; in fact, it improved slightly. The gross NPA stood at 5.03 percent against 5.25 percent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) while the net NPA came at 1.99 percent against 2.04 percent QoQ.

In monetary terms, the gross NPA came at Rs 29,071 crore against Rs 29,405 crore (QoQ) and net NPA came at Rs 11,138 crore against Rs 11,037 crore (QoQ).

The bank reported total slippages at Rs 4,983 crore against Rs 4,798 crore (QoQ) while net slippages came at Rs 2,770 crore against Rs 2,621 crore (QoQ).

The bank reported provisions at Rs 3,518.4 crore against Rs 3,814.6 crore QoQ and Rs 2,927.4 crore YoY.

The provision coverage ratio improved to 79 percent from 78 percent, the bank claimed.

The loan book grew by Rs 24,318 crore QoQ, the largest growth in the last eight quarters. CASA and retail term deposits together were up 21 percent YoY on a quarterly average basis, the bank said.

The Bank's balance sheet grew 11 percent YoY and stood at Rs 8,09,294 crore as on September 30.

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Axis Bank Q1 net profit jumps 95% YoY

Axis Bank on Tuesday said its net profit climbed 95 per cent YoY to Rs 1,370 crore for the June quarter against Rs 701 crore in the same quarter last year. 

The numbers failed to meet poll ET Now poll projection of Rs 1,850 crore by a wide margin. 

The bank said it downgraded Rs 2,242 crore into the BB pool during the quarter, mostly from groups that have shown new signs of stress in recent months. Post the action, the bank’s BB and below rated book remained largely stable QoQ and stood at Rs 7,504 crore. This is 1.3 per cent of the bank’s gross customer assets, significantly down from 7.3 per cent at peak, the private bank said. 

Net Interest Income (NII) for the quarter rose 13 per cent YOY to Rs 5,844 crore from Rs 5,167 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Net interest margin for Q1FY20 stood at 3.40 per cent, the private bank said in a BSE filing. Non-interest income, which comprises of fee, trading profit and miscellaneous income, jumped 32 per cent YOY to Rs 3,869 crore against Rs 2,925 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Fee income rose 26 per cent YOY to Rs 2,663 crore. 

The key driver of fee income growth was retail fee, which grew 28 per cent YOY and constituted 62 per cent of the bank’s total fee income. Card Fees rose 28 per cent YOY. Transaction banking fees rose 7 per cent YoY and constituted 16 per cent of the total fee income of the bank. 

Asset quality remained stable with the bank’s gross NPA and net NPA coming at 5.25 per cent and 2.04 per cent respectively, against 5.26 per cent and 2.06 per cent, respectively as on March 31.  

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Axis Bank back in the black; posts strong profit for Q4 as provisions drop

Axis Bank on Thursday reported a profit of Rs 1,505.06 crore for the quarter ended March 31. The private lender had posted a loss of Rs 2,188.74 crore in the corresponding period last year.

Analysts in an ET NOW poll has projected a net of Rs 1,615 crore. Provisions and contingencies declined 62 per cent YoY and 11.23 per cent QoQ to Rs 2,711.43 crore.

Asset quality improved in Q4FY19 with percentage of gross non-performing assets declining to 5.56 per cent from 5.75 per cent sequentially. The figure stood at 6.77 per cent in the corresponding quarter last year. Net NPA eased to 2.06 per cent against 2.36 per cent on a QoQ basis. It was at 3.40 per cent in the same quarter last year.

The board of the company recommended a dividend of Re 1 per equity share on a face value of Rs 2.The lender’s operating profit advanced 37 per cent YoY to Rs 5,014 crore in Q4FY19. Net interest income increased 21 per cent to Rs 5,706 crore. Net interest margin stood at 3.44 per cent.

For the full financial year, the lender reported a profit of Rs 4,677 crore against Rs 276 crore in FY18. Operating profit for FY19 grew 22 per cent.Gross slippages fell 19 per cent on a sequential basis to Rs 3,012 crore.

The bank’s balance sheet grew by 16 per cent to Rs 8,00,997 crore as on March 31. Advances increased 13 per cent YoY to Rs 4,94,798 crore as on March 31.

The book value of investments portfolio stood at Rs 1,74,969 crore of which Rs 1,20,239 crore were in government securities, while Rs 40,169 crore were invested in corporate bonds and Rs 14,561 crore in other securities such as equities, preference shares and mutual funds among others.

The bank has recognised slippages of Rs 3,012 crore during Q4FY19, compared to Rs 3,746 crore in Q3FY19 and Rs 16,536 crore in Q4FY18.

The bank has made additional provisions of Rs 1,300 crores over and above the normal NPA provisioning during the quarter. These provisions are not included in the standard PCR calculations.

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