Landbank H1 net income up 2.7% to P20.9B

MANILA  -Land Bank of the Philippines saw a 2.7-percent increase in its net income for the first semester, reaching P20.9 billion this year from P20.3 billion in the same period last year thanks to surges in earnings from loans and investments.

Landbank said the January-June bottom line for 2023 also exceeded its target for the period of P17.6 billion by 19 percent.

The state-run bank’s earnings as of the end of June is already three-fifths of Landbank’s full-year goal of P35 billion.

“We are very much on track in meeting our financial targets for the year, as income from loans and investments continue to expand,” Landbank president and chief executive Lynette V. Ortiz said in a statement.

Ortiz said Landbank’s performance so far this year puts it “in prime position to sustain our intensified support to the agriculture sector and other key industries.”

From January to June, the bank recorded a 49.8-percent jump in earnings from loans as well as a 43.5-percent surge in earnings from investments.

As of the end of June, the value of Landbank’s assets was pegged at P3 trillion, rising by 7.9 percent from P2.8 trillion a year earlier.

This was attributed to a 9.2-percent rise in the value of deposits, which reached P2.7 trillion.

Also, Landbank’s capital grew by 14.4 percent to P236.3 billion from P206.5 billion.

Meanwhile, the bank’s return on equity remains at 13.82 percent.

Global credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings recently upgraded its outlook for Landbank to “stable” from “negative,” and affirmed the bank’s long-term issuer default rating (IDR) at “BBB.”

“This rating action follows a similar revision in the outlook on the Philippines’ sovereign rating to stable from negative, which reflects Fitch’s improved confidence that the Philippines is returning to strong medium-term growth after the Covid-19 pandemic, supporting sustained reductions in government debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) after substantial increase in recent years,” the agency said last May 30.

Fitch Ratings said Landbank’s long-term IDR was underpinned by their expectation of state support to the bank.

In particular, the rating considers the Landbank’s strategic and growing policy roles, 100-percent state ownership as well as its systemic importance as the largest state-owned bank in the country with a market share of about 14 percent of assets in the Philippine banking system.

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