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India's Kotak Mahindra Bank drops on worries over higher credit costs, soft loan growth
A man walks past the Kotak Mahindra Bank branch in New Delhi · Reuters

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(Reuters) - India's Kotak Mahindra Bank slid 5.5% on Monday after the lender's fourth-quarter results fanned concerns over higher credit costs and softer loan growth.

The lender reported a bigger-than-expected drop in profit on Saturday, mainly hurt by higher provisions for bad loans.

Analysts at Investec called Kotak's loan growth of 13% "a tad softer", while BofA analysts said the loan growth momentum was a "key disappointment."

BofA also downgraded Kotak Mahindra Bank's stock to "neutral".

Meanwhile, Bernstein analysts said Kotak saw yet another quarter of higher credit costs, which was a key surprise, especially as its peers reported stable or improving credit costs.

The stock was the top loser on the benchmark Nifty 50, which was trading 0.6% higher, and also on the Nifty bank index, which was flat.

The session's fall trimmed the stock's year-to-date gains to about 16%, which is still roughly double the 8.3% increase in the Nifty bank index.

(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)