Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) reported a significant rise in earnings from January to September on the back of higher interest and noninterest income.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Wednesday, BPI said net earnings expanded to P17.38 billion, up 25.6 percent year-on-year.
The lender’s total revenues increased 14.3 percent to P50.42 billion, while its net-interest income grew 9.1 percent to P31.28 billion.
Noninterest earnings jumped 23.9 percent to P19.14 billion, buoyed by strong gains in trading, as well as fees earned from core transactional and bancassurance businesses.
“I am very pleased with BPI’s strong earnings momentum going into the end of the year. We are doing some very innovative things with both clients and our own organization to build this momentum,” President and CEO Cezar Consing said in a statement.
“Our shareholders can expect us to continue to achieve volume and topline growth within a context of strong risk and cost discipline,” he added. Meanwhile, total loans stood at P931.12 billion, up 19.4 percent with a healthy 77:23 corporate-retail mix. Total deposits stood at P1.32 trillion, which grew 11.6 percent year-on-year.
Operating expenses of the Ayala-led bank went up 11.7 percent to P25.58 billion, driven by nonrecurring collective bargaining costs and accelerated information technology-related spending.
Cost-to-income ratio slid 50.7 percent versus 51.9 percent in the same period last year. ROA and ROE as of end September were at 1.5 percent and 14.7 percent, respectively.
BPI’s gross 90-day NPLs dropped 1.6 percent, from 1.8 percent as reserve cover rose 112 percent.
The country’s oldest bank raised provisions, up 20.1 percent year-on-year to P3.95 billion, not withstanding stable credit quality. The bank said it expects operating expense growth to remain at single-digit levels for the full year of 2016.