Axis Bank profit dips as provisions rise

Axis Bank, India's fourth-largest private lender by market value, posted an unexpected drop in first-quarter profit on Thursday as its bad loans surged after a one-time industry benchmarking exercise.

- Reuters

The bank's gross slippages, or loans classified as bad assets for the first time, ballooned to ₹82 billion ($953 million) in the April-June quarter, from about ₹48 billion in both the previous and year-ago quarters.

"As a bank, we do an internal benchmarking exercise to the market best practices annually. (This time) we found an odd bank that was following criteria more stringent than us, and that benchmarking led to the change that we made," Axis Bank's chief financial officer Puneet Sharma said in an earnings call.

However, Sharma did not name this "odd bank" or give other details on the benchmarking exercise.