Bangkok--20 Jan--Bangkok Bank
* Lending increased by 13.2% year-on-year
* NPL ratio declined to 4.6%
* Financially strong with capital adequacy ratio at 14.6%
Bangkok Bank reported preliminary results for 2008 with a net profit for the year of Baht
20.0 billion and profit before provisions and tax of Baht 35.5 billion, an increase from the previous year of 4.9 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively.
In 2008, the bank reported good loan growth, with higher revenue from net interest income, fee income and foreign exchange gain, where the increase in revenue was higher than the increase in non-interest expenses.
Loans in 2008 rose by 13.2 percent to Baht 1,171.7 billion. The growth was largely due to increased requirements from business clients for working capital and investment needs. Deposits grew by 3.5 percent to Baht 1,311.5 billion.
During the year, the bank continued to focus on resolving non-performing loans (NPLs) and at the end of the year, NPLs declined by 33.1 percent or by Baht 27.0 billion to Baht 54.6 billion. The ratio of NPLs to total loans fell to 4.6 percent compared to 7.9 percent at the end of December 2007.
In 2008, fee income increased by Baht 1.6 billion or by 10.2 percent year-on-year to Baht 17.2 billion. This was the result of higher volumes of transactions in basic banking services such as ATMs, credit cards and fund transfers as well as significant increase in non-traditional products such as mutual funds and bancassurance. Gain on foreign exchange also increased by 7.4 percent from the previous year to Baht 4.3 billion.
The investment portfolio reported a loss of Baht 3.0 billion, largely due to impairment charges for investments in debt securities which have been affected by the fluctuations in the US financial markets.
Non-interest expenses in 2008 amounted to Baht 37.4 billion, increasing by 6.6 percent from 2007, with higher expenditure on personnel and premises due to branch network expansion.
Loan loss reserves at the year-end amounted to Baht 59.8 billion, and the coverage ratio
increased to 109.4 percent of NPLs. Provisioning expenses in 2008 amounted to Baht 6.4 billion or about 57 basis points of average loans. Corporate income tax expenses decreased marginally by Baht 37 million to Baht 9.1 billion and the effective tax rate was approximately 31.2 percent of pre-tax profit.
Shareholders' equity as of December 31, 2008, totaled Baht 173.2 billion. With the inclusion of the net profit for the second half of 2008, the bank's capital adequacy ratio and Tier 1 capital ratio under the newly revised Bank of Thailand requirements using Basel 2 guidelines were approximately 14.6 percent and 11.9 percent, respectively. Earnings per share for 2008 amounted to Baht 10.50 per share, up from Baht 10.01 per share last year.
Bangkok Bank Public Company Limited (Bor. Mor. Jor.111)
333 Silom Road Bangkok 10500 Thailand Tel. (662) 230-2710 Fax. (662) 231-4692