Bank of the Philippine Islands, the third-largest lender in terms of assets, said Thursday net income jumped 74.28 percent in the first nine months to P30.5 billion from P17.5 billion a year ago on higher revenues and lower provisions.
The bank said in a statement the return on equity and return on assets reached 13.73 percent and 1.66 percent, respectively.
“Excluding the impact of the one-off gain from sale of property in the second quarter and adjustments due to the CREATE [Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises] Law, net income would have been P26.8 billion for an ROE of 12.05 percent and ROA of 1.46 percent,” it said.
Revenues grew 22.1 percent year-on-year to P87.5 billion, boosted by the 20.5-percent growth in net interest income to P61.6 billion on the back of continued loan growth and sustained expansion in average net interest margin by 23 basis points to 3.53 percent.
Non-interest income also improved 26.2 percent to P25.8 billion, driven by the one- off gain in asset sale, gains in foreign exchange transactions and fees from the credit cards business.
BPI said operating expenses rose 9.9 percent to P40.1 billion, on higher regulatory, technology and transaction-related costs. Cost-to-income ratio was 45.8 percent. Excluding the impact of the asset sale, cost-to-income ratio was at 48.6 percent.
BPI booked provisions of P7.5 billion, a 26.8-percent reduction from last year. Asset quality continued to improve with non-performing loan ratio at 1.94 percent and NPL coverage ratio at 176.9 percent as of September. Taxes paid and accrued rose to P17.2 billion.
BPI said third-quarter net income reached P10.1 billion, driven by 26.8-percent revenue growth to P29.8 billion, on double-digit growth from net interest income and non-interest income and growth in the customer base to over 9 million.
Loans went up 15.4 percent to P1.6 trillion as of Sept. 30, led by growth in the credit card, corporate/SME and auto portfolios of 29.1 percent, 16.4 percent and 12.1 percent, respectively.
Deposits expanded by 13.2 percent year-on-year to P2.0 trillion, while CASA (current and savings accounts) increased 7.5 percent. CASA ratio stood at 76.1 percent and loan-to-deposit ratio at 78.7 percent as of end-September.
Total assets grew 11.8 percent year-on-year to P2.5 trillion. Total equity stood at P313.4 billion, with an indicative common equity tier 1 ratio of 15.9 percent and a capital adequacy ratio of 16.8 percent, both above regulatory requirements.
BPI announced on Sept. 30 merger plans with Robinsons Bank Corp. with BPI emerging as the surviving entity, subject to shareholders and regulatory approvals.
BPI said the merger, which the parties hope to complete before the end of 2023, would unlock various synergies across several products and service platforms and expand the customer and deposit base of both banks through the merged entity.