Bank of the Philippine Islands ended the first semester with record net income of P30.6 billion, up 21.5 percent, driven by robust revenues and sustained positive operating leverage.
In a statement, the Ayala-led bank said its Return on Equity was 15.5 percent and Return on Assets was 2.0 percent.
Earnings per share for the first semester stood at P5.80, up 14.0 percent from last year’s P5.09, notwithstanding the additional shares issued for the BPI and RBC merger.
Total revenues accelerated 23.8 percent to P81.2 billion year-on-year, boosted by the 22.2 percent increase in net interest income to P61.3 billion.
Average loans expanded 18.4 percent and net interest margin widened 23 basis points to 4.26 percent.
Non-interest income was up 28.7 percent to P19.9 billion, driven by the 28.8 percent increase in fee income to P17.0 billion and foreign exchange gains of P2.2 billion, up 58.6 percent year-on-year.
Strong fee income performance was led by higher service charges, bancassurance income, and credit card fees.
Operating expenses reached P38.3 billion, up 21.9 percent, on more spending for manpower, transaction processing costs, and technology, resulting in a Cost-to-Income ratio of 47.1 percent.
Provisions booked were P3.0 billion, a 50.0 percent jump from last year. Despite the uptick in NPL ratio to 2.20 percent, asset quality remained strong with sufficient NPL coverage at 127.6 percent.
For the second quarter of the year, the bank booked net income of P15.3 billion, up 17.5 percent year-on-year, on the back of higher revenue growth of 23.0 percent to P41.7 billion.
Total loans stood at P2.0 trillion, an 18.0 percent increase over the previous year, driven by sustained growth across all portfolios led by Personal Loans, up 128.7 percent, Business Banking, up 87.9 percent, and Microfinance, up 67.2 percent.
Total deposits stood at P2.5 trillion, up 14.4 percent year-on-year, with CASA Ratio at 64.7 percent and the Loan-to-Deposit Ratio at 82.8 percent. Total assets grew to P3.1 trillion, up 15.8 percent year-on-year.
Total equity stood at P406.5 billion, with an indicative Common Equity Tier 1 Ratio of 14.2 percent and a Capital Adequacy Ratio of 15.0 percent, both above regulatory requirements.
The 172-year-old Bank of the Philippine Islands is the first bank in the Philippines and Southeast Asia and licensed as a universal bank by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to provide a diverse range of financial services: deposit taking and cash management, payments, lending and leasing, wealth management, bancassurance, investment banking, securities brokerage, foreign exchange and treasury.
BPI has investment-grade ratings of BBB+ (S&P), Baa2 (Moody’s), BBB (Capital Intelligence), and BBB- (Fitch).
