Maybank Philippines Inc. on Thursday reported a 31.2-percent year-on-year growth in profits before tax (PBT) to P636.4 million for the first nine months of the year on higher net interest income.
For the January-to-September period, gross loans grew 29.6 percent or up by P8.3 billion and attributable to an increase in term loans.
Maybank Philippines, which is part of the Maybank Group, a regional financial services leader, recorded a significantly better performance in the nine-month period on better net interest income.
“The bank benefited from an improvement in net interest margin, which rose by 80 basis points to 5.92 percent from 5.12 percent, previously,” it said in a statement.
Consequently, revenue for the period rose 19 percent compared to a year earlier, to P2.95 billion.
In September it opened the Maybank Cagayan de Oro Business Center, its third business center in the Philippines which houses a full-service branch, consumer lending desks and its first premier wealth lounge.
The Maybank premier wealth lounge will cater to Maybank’s high net worth customers who have at least P3 million in total deposits and investments with the bank, or P7 million in total deposits, investments and loans.
Maybank Philippines has grown organically with a network of 79 branches, of which 30 are in Metro Manila and the rest strategically located in key cities in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. The bank also has 93 offsite and on-site automated teller machines nationwide.
Meanwhile, Maybank Group’s PBT for the nine months ended September, rose 1.7 percent to RM6.68 billion as higher net fund-based income, lower overheads and lower impairment losses were mostly offset by lower fee-based income.
Net profit was RM4.79 billion, marginally lower by 0.7 percent from the RM4.82 billion a year ago, owing primarily to a higher tax charge.
Maybank Group President and CEO Datuk Abdul Farid Alias said the nine-month period was challenging for financial institutions in Malaysia to find growth.
“Owing to this, we focused on areas that we could control while taking the opportunity to strive for faster growth in selected business segments,” he said.
“We made some investments for our future and will continue to follow this strategy for the remainder of the year, while preparing for 2015,” he added.
Maybank is backed by assets of over $170 billion at end-March 2014.
Genivi Factao