Asia United Bank (AUB) and its four subsidiariesposted a P6.3 billion net income for the full-year 2022, 56.0 percent higher than the previous year, boosted mainly by increased loan volume, higher margins, and improvement on loan loss provisions.
Based on its latest unaudited financial statements, the bank ended the fourth quarter with a net income of P1.7 billion, 54 percent higher than a year ago.
Its full-year 2022 net income results pushed its Return on Equity up to 16.2 percent versus 11.1 percent in 2021 and 14.2 percent in pre-pandemic 2019. Return on Assets stood at 1.9 percent in 2022, also higher than the previous year’s 1.3 percent.
“We believe our agility in achieving a balance among growth, pricing, expense and risk management will continue to enable us to surmount the challenges of higher inflation and interest rate volatility that are seen to persist in 2023,” said AUB president Manuel A. Gomez.
Higher interest income from loans and investment securities led to an 18 percent year-on-year increase in its net interest income to P12.9 billion while keeping interest expense at bay. This translated to a net interest margin of 4.2 percent from 3.7 percent, previously.
AUB continues to be one of the smartest spenders in the industry with operational expenses inching up by 2 percent, resulting in a cost-to-income ratio of 37.5 percent, lower than 42.4 percent, year-on-year. This resulted from the bank’s continuous automation enhancements and process optimization to deliver quality services to customers efficiently at less cost.
With the economy coming back on track and asset quality improving, AUB saw its loan portfolio grow by 12 percent to P195.0 billion from the 2021 level. The heftier loan volume mostly came from the bank’s corporate clients which started restocking their inventories and resuming business activities due to the economy’s reopening. Mirroring the improved business climate in the country, AUB reduced its loan loss provisions by 33 percent to P1.6 billion versus year-ago while its non-performing loans (NPL) ratio shrank to 1.0 percent and NPL coverage ratio strengthened to 115.1 percent.
