Loan growth boosts UCPB 2015 profits

UNITED Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) posted a 5.1-percent growth in net profit last year to P3.3 billion, driven by the robust growth of its consumer loans business, treasury earnings and contribution from subsidiaries.

“We are very glad that we exceeded our P2.7-billion full-year net income projection. This is a concerted effort among the UCPB group composed of the parent bank and subsidiaries UCPB Savings Bank, UCPB Leasing and Finance Corp. and UCPB Securities Inc. We are confident that we can sustain this upward trajectory even as we continue to look for a government-approved alternative to our suspended recapitalization program,” UCPB president and chief executive officer Jeronimo Kilayko said.

The bank grew its loan book by 10 percent to P127.7 billion last year. Consumer loans expanded by 29 percent to P49.5 billion while maintaining good loan quality as reflected by the bank’s net non-performing loan ratio of 1.98 percent.

Consumer loan growth was supported by an 8.4-percent increase in deposit to P239.1 billion from year-ago levels.

About 70 percent of UCPB’s deposits consisted of low-cost funds, which allowed the bank to lower its expenses last year by 3.7 percent.

In the meantime, UCPB reported a 6.5-percent growth in fee-based income to P1 billion which was contributed by consumer loan, deposit and other product-related fees.  Trading income also grew by 16 percent to P201.9 million in 2015.

Operating expenses remained relatively flat, with very minimal 0.3 percent increase from 2014.

UCPB subsidiaries also contributed higher net income. UCPB Savings Bank’s 2015 net income increased by 22.6 percent to P437.4 million while UCPB Leasing Finance Corp.’s net income also rose by 16.3 percent to P173.3 million.

UCPB Savings Bank provides commercial financing and consumer loan financing to teacher and local government employees while UCPB Leasing provides leasing and commercial financing to medium-sized companies.