India's largest private sector lender, ICICI Bank's net profit for the year ended March 31, 2009 (FY2009) declined by Rs400 crore (9.6 per cent) to Rs3,758 crore from Rs4,158 crore in FY2008. The bank blames this on higher effective tax rate on account of lower proportion of income taxable as dividends and capital gains.

Its profit before tax was at Rs5,117 crore, compared to Rs5,056 crore in FY2008, while net interest income increased 15 per cent to Rs8,367 crore from Rs7,304 crore.

While the advances declined marginally year-on-year, the net interest income increased due to improvement in net interest margin from 2.2 per cent in FY2008 to 2.4 per cent in FY2009.

For the fourth quarter of FY09, its net profit declined by 35.29 per cent at Rs744 crore against Rs1,150 crore in the same period of last year.

The bank's total income plunged by 11.43 per cent at Rs9,203 crore from Rs10,391 crore.

Diluted earning per share (EPS) slipped to Rs6.68 per share versus Rs10.27 per share, year-on-year, and net interest margin (NIM) came in at 2.6 per cent.

The bank's operating expenses declined by 14.26 per cent at Rs6,835 crore from Rs7,972 and net non-performing assets (NPA) went up at 1.95 per cent as against 1.5 per cent.

The bank's insurance subsidiary, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company maintained its market leadership in the private sector with an overall market share of 11.8 per cent based on retail new business. ICICI Life's total premium increased by 13 per cent to Rs15,356 crore in FY2009, while its  renewal premium increased by 61 per cent.

Meanwhile, its another subsidiary, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company,  maintained its leadership in the private sector with an overall market share of 11.7 per cent. ICICI General's premiums increased 3 per cent on a year-on-year basis to Rs3,457 crore in FY2009. ICICI General made a profit after tax of Rs24 crore in FY2009.

As of 24 April 2008, the bank has 1,438 branches. The Bank is also in the process of opening 580 new branches, the company said in a statement.

The bank also said that N Vaghul would retire as non-executive chairman of the Board of Directors of ICICI Bank on April 30, 2009. K.V Kamath, who would retire as the managing director & CEO of the bank will assume office as non-executive chairman of the board effective 1 May 2009.

Chanda Kochhar would assume office as managing director & CEO of ICICI Bank effective 1 May 2009.