MUMBAI, May 18 -- Beneath the one-time profit hit from the Rs.590 crore Chandigarh fraud, IDFC FIRST Bank's March-quarter (Q4FY26) earnings revealed a deeper concern: deposit growth slowed sharply after the incident dented depositor confidence.

The private sector lender's customer deposits rose just 1% sequentially during Q4 to Rs.2.84 trillion, even as Indian banking sector deposits rose 13.5% year-on-year (y-o-y) to Rs.262.3 trillion during the per, up from 10.3% growth a year earlier, according to Reserve Bank of India data.

"We saw an increase in total deposits by about 16.8% on a YoY basis.The growth was modest at 1% during the quarter.There was also an impact of the one-off fraud incident, which occurred during the quarter," chief...