Mumbai, July 25: ICICI Bank Ltd, the country’s second-largest commercial bank, on Friday reported a 34 per cent rise in quarterly net profit, above expectations, helped by a drop in borrowing costs and a boom in retail lending. The privately-managed ICICI, one of only two Indian banks listed on the New York Stock Exchange , reported a profit of Rs 340 crore.
That compared with a reported net profit of Rs 253 crore in the year-ago quarter. A Reuters survey of four brokerages had forecast an average net profit of Rs 303 crore.

Other Indian banks already posted impressive growth in quarterly earnings as three-decade low interest rates stoked a boom in consumer lending in a country with an estimated middle class of around 300 million people.
ICICI Bank's shares have gained about 11 per cent to Thursday's close in 2003, outperforming a rise of around nine per cent in the benchmark Bombay exchange index but sharply lagging a scorching 35 per cent increase in the exchange's state-run bank dominated banking sub-index. Bureau Report