BPI posts P4.43-B Q2 profit

Ayala-led Bank of the Philippine Islands posted a 21-percent year-on-year growth in second-quarter net profit to P4.43 billion as strong core earnings made up for the industry-wide downturn in trading gains.

This brought the bank’s six-month net profit to P8.03 billion, about a third lower than the previous year’s level when extraordinary trading gains boosted overall profits.

This represented about 40 percent of the bank’s full-year 2014 net profit guidance of P20.21 billion.

In a briefing on Friday, BPI president Cezar Consing said although there were many “moving parts” to the full-year guidance, the bank would stick to this target on expectation of a further improvement in core earnings in the second half of the year.

“We expect core income to improve quarter to quarter. That’s the expectation and the hope. We expect the third quarter to be stronger still and that’s what is expected because [of] the asset base,” Consing said.

“At this point in time, we’re not making any changes to our earnings guidance,” he said.

The P20.21-billion full-year profit goal, if achieved, will mark a record high for BPI and represent a 7.5-percent growth from the P18.8- billion bottom line posted last year.

The six-month performance translated to a return on equity of 12.9 percent and return on assets of 1.3 percent for BPI.

“What is significant is the growth in net interest income, in the core interest earnings of the bank… We are very pleased with these results,” Consing said.

For the first semester of this year, BPI’s net interest income rose by 15 percent to P16.8 billion while non-interest income declined by 32 percent to P9.2 billion compared to their respective levels in the previous year, reflecting reduced reliance on securities trading.

BPI grew its loan book by 23 percent year-on-year to end the semester at P697 billion.

Consing said three-fourths of the lending portfolio consisted of corporate accounts with the balance accounted for by consumer lending.