Axis Bank Q2 Results: Core Income beats; Asset Quality, slippages better sequentially

Axis Bank, the Mumbai-based private lender, reported September quarter results on Saturday, October 17, with net interest income beating analyst estimates, while net profit fell short of expectations.

Net Interest Income (NII) or the bank's core income stood at ₹15,372 crore. That is a growth of 11.8% from last year. A CNBC-TV18 poll was working with a number of ₹14,970 crore.

Particulars	Q2FY27 Actual	Q2FY27 Poll	Beat / Miss
NII	15,371	14,970	+2.7%
Operating Profit (PPOP)	11,083	11,761	-5.8%
PAT	7,003	7,132	-1.8%

Net profit for the period stood at ₹7,003.3 crore, below the CNBC-TV18 poll estimate of ₹7,132 crore. On a year-on-year basis, Axis Bank's bottomline grew by 37.6%.

Axis Bank's asset quality remained stable from the June quarter with gross NPA in absolute terms at ₹16,778 crore from ₹17,124.3 crore in June, while Net NPAs stood at ₹5,054 crore from ₹5,192.6 crore in the last quarter. In percentage terms, Axis Bank's gross NPA stood at 1.16%, while Net NPA stood at 0.35%. During the June quarter, Axis Bank had reported gross NPA and Net NPA of 1.28% and 0.39% respectively.

Provisions for the September quarter stood at ₹1,694 crore, down from ₹2,223 crore in the June quarter and ₹3,547 crore in the year-ago period. The Bank holds cumulative provisions (standard + additional other than NPA) of ₹15,860 crores as on September 30, 2026.

It is pertinent to note that this is over and above the NPA provisioning included in the Bank’s PCR calculations.

Axis Bank acquired around 1.09 million cards in Q2FY27, with its market share at approximately 13.1% of cards in force.

The bank’s gross slippage ratio stood at 1.48%, down 63 basis points year-on-year and 31 basis points quarter-on-quarter, while the net slippage ratio declined 30 basis points year-on-year and 37 basis points sequentially to 0.75%. Fresh slippages fell to ₹4,762 crore from ₹5,566 crore in the previous quarter, while upgradations and recoveries rose to ₹2,380 crore from ₹2,126 crore sequentially.

As per its provisional business update for the June quarter, Axis Bank's Gross Advances had grown by 22.7% to ₹13,846 crore, while total deposits had grown by 20.7% from last year to ₹14,521 crore.

The bank had mobilized FCNR (B) deposits worth $10.62 billion as of September 30, and a portion of that was utilized to reduce the non-retail term deposits during the quarter, resulting in an 8.6% sequential decline.

Loans extended by the bank's international branches to customers as leveraging facility stood at $4.57 billion, and adjusted for these loans, Axis Bank's gross advances would have grown by 17% from last year, and 2.6% sequentially, while deposits would have grown by 17% year-on-year and 2.6% from the June quarter.

Axis Bank also issued standby letters of credit to other lenders in respect to loans against FCNR (B) deposits. That amount stood at $4.69 billion.

Shares of Axis Bank ended little changed ahead of the results announcement at ₹1,290. The stock is up 4% in the last one month and is barely managing to stay above the flat line on a year-to-date basis.