Mumbai, Jan 27 (PTI) Mortgage lender LIC Housing Finance (LICHFL) on Thursday reported a 6 per cent increase in profit after tax at Rs 767.33 crore for the quarter ended December 2021, aided by higher collections and drop in provisions.

It had reported a profit after tax of Rs 727.04 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal.

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"The income levels were more or less maintained. Our collections were good during the three months of the quarter. Recovery also picked up across all the regions.

"Even the provisions were less in the quarter because of the provisions we had made earlier," the company's Managing Director and CEO Y Viswanatha Gowd said.

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The lender reported better growth in the quarter due to higher disbursements during the festive season.

Gowd also said with easing of the pandemic, growth and asset quality metrics are expected to improve.

Provisions during the quarter stood at Rs 355 crore as against Rs 665 crore made in the second quarter of this fiscal.

Net interest income (NII) grew 14 per cent to Rs 1,455 crore, as against Rs 1,281 crore for the same period in the previous year.

Net interest margin (NIM) improved to 2.42 per cent as against 2.36 per cent. Gowd expects Q4 NIM to be at around 2.50 per cent.

The stage 3 exposure at default stood at 5.04 per cent, as against 2.68 per cent as on December 31, 2020.

The individual loan portfolio was Rs 2,29,321 crore, compared to Rs 2,04,444 crore earlier, a growth of 12 per cent.

Project loan portfolio stood at Rs 14,091 crore as against Rs 15,753 crore as on December 31, 2020.

Total outstanding portfolio grew at 11 per cent to Rs 2,43,412 crore from Rs 2,20,197 crore.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)