Rated as one of the five largest banks in the country by assets, RCBC reported having generated interest income worth P10.75 billion last year or 15 percent higher than in 2010.
Its non-interest income, comprised mainly of earnings from trading activities, service fees, commissions, as well as fees from its lucrative trust business, totaled another P7.11 billion.
It reported consolidated assets worth P345.77 billion which was eight percent higher than the year-ago resources of only P319.99 billion.
Just nine months earlier, RCBC reported assets worth only P311.2 billion.
Its loan portfolio also continued to expand, totaling P184.67 billion, the bulk of which or 37 percent was extended to so-called small and medium scale borrowers or SMEs.
SMEs tend to be exporters and other upwardly mobile entrepreneurs requiring regular bank funding in the tens of millions of pesos.
The big league borrowers in the corporate world got 30 percent of the loans RCBC extended last year equal to more or less P55 billion.
Consumer loans, which typically fund car purchases, credit-card expenses and the purchase of residential units, got a 15-percent share of total loans worth another P27.7 billion.
These activities combined allowed RCBC to post an interest margin averaging 4.09 percent or well within industry norm.
It also reported improving quality of loans as its soured-loans ratio stood at only 1.47 percent or roughly half that posted in 2010 when its non-performing loans averaged 3.1 percent.
The bank’s capital funds stood 25 percent higher to P40.55 billion from the year-ago figure of only P32.41 billion as a result of higher earnings and the entry of the International Finance Corp. as equity shareholder beginning last year.
The IFC, the private investment arm of the World Bank, invested P5.8 billion in RCBC as a strategic partner and an indication of just how well the bank’s finances are being managed.
The bank’s capital-adequacy ratio, an indicator of capacity to sustain losses without impairing its ability to lend, stood well above the regulatory minimum of just 10 percent to 19.31 percent.
Total deposits as of end-2011 totaled P255.46 billion as the bank continued to focus on growing its low-cost CASA deposits which grew by 20.33 percent while prudently reducing higher costing time deposits. CASA to total deposits ratio improved to 56.53 percent in 2011 compared to 50.69 percent in the same period last year.
Operating expenses totaled P12.15 billion as the bank continued to expand its branch and ATM network in order to increase reach and improve customer convenience.
As of end December 2011, the bank’s branch network reached 389 from end-2010’s 371.
The bank now has 761 ATMs compared to 609 last year.
The expansion of its distribution channels through increasing the number of its branch and ATM networks, the addition of more features to its electronic banking facilities and partnerships with Mercury Drug which launched the RCBC MyWallet Mercury Drug, all contributed to the growth in CASA deposits.
