Piran Engineer's questions to ICICI BANK (IBN) leadership • Q2 2026
Question
Piran Engineer questioned why net interest margins (NIMs) are expected to be range-bound for only the next two quarters, rather than improving over a longer 4-6 quarter horizon. He also asked about the proportion of term deposit growth acquired in the last six months and the cause of the sequential decline in provisions for retirement benefits. Finally, he sought clarification on whether the improvement in slippages was solely due to personal loans and credit cards (PLCC) or also reflected broader improvements across other retail segments.
Answer
Anindya Banerjee, CFO, explained that while NIMs have navigated the cycle well, too many moving parts (monetary policy, competition, loan mix) make it difficult to project beyond the next couple of quarters, hence the range-bound expectation. He declined to provide specific data on term deposit acquisition. Regarding retirement benefits, Mr. Banerjee attributed the Q1 to Q2 decline to typical gratuity-related provisions after increments and the absence of an increase in DNS allowance for pensioned employees this year, stating he doesn't expect overall OpEx to increase at the Q2 pace. He confirmed that in addition to corporate/business banking net deletions, most other retail portfolios also showed sequential improvement in slippages.