At its media briefing and annual stockholders meeting, BDO Unibank Inc. (BDO) President and CEO Nestor V. Tan, told the bank’s shareholders its full-year 2014 results, a record P22.8 billion in net income. This figure matched the bank’s earnings guidance and represented an 18-percent growth in terms of normalized earnings (i.e., excluding one-off gains booked in 2013).
The bank’s outstanding performance was attributed to increased earnings from its core businesses, mainly lending and deposit taking and fee based services.
Despite its continued business expansion, operating expense growth was well managed, and asset quality continued to improve.
BDO continued its momentum in the first quarter of 2015 with a net income of P6.1 billion, 12 percent higher year on year.
Net interest income continued to be the main earnings driver, increasing to P13.3billion. The bank’s customer loans grew by 15 percent year on year to hit P1.1 trillion, while total deposits now stand at P1.5 trillion, up 12 percent. The deposit growth was driven by low cost deposits, which grew 17 percent from sustained marketing efforts and branch expansion.
Fee-based income from payments, transaction banking, and asset management services also expanded to P4.3 billion, while treasury-related activities were off to a good start with a contribution of P3.4 billion. Operating expense growth was contained at 12 percent, bringing preprovisioning operating profit to P8.7 billion, up 19 percent year on year.
The bank set aside P1.2 billion in provisions for the quarter, even as asset quality remained healthy with Nonperforming loan (NPL) ratio at 1.3 percent and NPL cover of 192 percent. With a capital base of P181 billion, the bank’s common equity Tier-1 (CET1) ratio and capital adequacy ratio (CAR) remained comfortably above the regulatory minimum under the Basel 3 framework at 11.9 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
With respect to the 2014 performance, the board approved a special cash dividend of P0.90 per share during its regular board meeting.