HDFC Bank's Q1 brings some relief to investors despite higher bad loans

Lower moratorium, accelerated NPA recognition and higher provisioning coverage indicate lower asset quality impact, the bank indicates internal successor of Aditya Puri

HDFC Bank’s June 2020 quarter (Q1) numbers, reported on Saturday last week, offer good comfort to investors on asset quality front with lower moratorium, accelerated NPA recognition and higher provision coverage. Therefore, despite higher bad loans and sharp fall in retail loan originations in Q1, the stock of HDFC Bank gained 3.5 per cent on Monday, outperforming a 1.7 per cent rise in the Nifty Bank index.

In Q1, the banks’ absolute gross non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans were up 9 per cent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 13,773.5 crore, it was mainly due to accelerated NPA recognition by the bank based