BPI profit up over 74% at end-September

The Ayala Group’s Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) saw profits jump at end-September, with core business segments contributing to a healthy growth in revenues despite mounting inflationary pressures.

BPI’s net income in the nine-month period surged over 74 percent to P30.5 billion, partly due to the sale of property, tax adjustments and foreign exchange gains, a statement on Thursday showed.

But even without these nonrecurring gains, profits were up 53 percent to P26.8 billion.

One of the country’s biggest banks, BPI’s earnings offer a glimpse of how the country’s financial sector weathered an era of accelerating consumer prices coupled with rising interest rates.

It also reflected lower risk from potential defaults as the economy recovered from pandemic restrictions.

Thus, the lender’s expenses for bad loans dropped 26.8 percent to P7.5 billion while nonperforming loans (NPL) ratio improved to 1.94 percent. BPI ended the period with an NPL coverage ratio of 176.9 percent.

Meanwhile, BPI said total revenues rose 22.1 percent to P87.5 billion.

The strong growth in loans pushed up net interest income by 20.5 percent to P61.6 billion while average net interest margin rose by 23 basis points to 3.53 percent.

BPI’s non-interest income grew 26.2 percent to P25.8 billion due to property sales and gains in foreign exchange transactions and fees from the credit card business.

Total loans rose 15.4 percent to P1.6 trillion on the expansion of credit card, corporate, small and medium enterprise and car segment loans.

Total deposits added 13.2 percent to P2 trillion on higher consumer and savings deposits.

The lender’s total assets also grew 11.8 percent to P2.5 trillion while 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, which were above regulatory requirements.

BPI is in the midst of acquiring the smaller Robinsons Bank Corp. of the Gokongwei Group.

The merger and asset swap will result in the Gokongweis taking a 6-percent stake in BPI.

—Miguel R. Camus