HDFC Bank loan book crosses 25L cr mark; stock rallies over 3%

THE country's largest private sector lender HDFC Bank on Thursday said its loan book crossed 25 trillion (25 lakh crore) mark as of end-March, spawning a massive rally in its stock, which has been down in the dumps since the merger with its parent last July.

- BENN KOCHUVEEDAN

Buckling a choppy trade for the broader market after a huge gap-up opening the market went into the red mid-day but gained towards the end, primarily because of the over 3% rally in the HDFC Bank counter, which has the largest weighting in both the indices. Finally, the counter settled with 3.06% gains at 1,527.9 after hitting a high of 1,529.9 on the BSE. Since the merger the stock had hit a nadir of 1,365 from over 1,700 premerger.

In an exchange filing, the second-largest lender after SBI, said its gross advances stood at 25.08 trillion as of March 31, 2024, a growth of 55.4% from 16.14 trillion as of March 31, 2023. Of the incremental growth, the merger contributed to close over ₹6 trillion to the loan book.