SC Jeil Bank, H1 Consolidated Net Profit 184.8 Billion KRW... Up 1.5% YoY

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-seop] SC First Bank announced on the 17th that its consolidated net profit for the first half of this year reached 184.8 billion KRW, an increase of 1.5% (2.8 billion KRW) compared to the same period last year.

Operating profit for the same period was 238.9 billion KRW, a slight increase of 2.4 billion KRW (1.0%) compared to the same period. Despite a decline in net interest margin (NIM) due to the lowest level of benchmark interest rates, interest income increased by 4.8%. SC First Bank explained that this was thanks to the expansion of loan assets and growth in low-cost deposits resulting from steady strengthening of its business foundation.

Non-interest income decreased by 2.6% compared to the first half of last year. The wealth management (WM) division continued to grow steadily, but the foreign exchange trading division, which had shown strong performance, somewhat slowed down.

The total loan asset size reached 85.1701 trillion KRW as of the end of June. This is an increase of 1.9812 trillion KRW (2.4%) from 83.1889 trillion KRW at the end of December last year.

Key soundness indicators, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BIS) capital adequacy ratio and the Tier 1 capital ratio, stood at a healthy level of 16.64% and 14.79%, respectively. The provision for loan losses decreased by 35.4 billion KRW. This is seen as a base effect from proactively setting aside expected credit loss provisions last year in anticipation of an economic slowdown in the first half.

Return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) were 0.44% and 7.69%, respectively, both down by 0.04 percentage points and 0.33 percentage points compared to the same period last year. The ratio of non-performing loans and delinquency rate slightly improved during the same period, recording 0.23% and 0.11%, respectively.

Meanwhile, SC First Bank held a board meeting on the 12th and resolved an interim dividend of 80 billion KRW. This dividend was decided from a routine management perspective based on accounting settlement results. SC First Bank emphasized that financial soundness maintenance aspects such as the BIS capital adequacy ratio, international standards, and domestic guidelines were also taken into consideration.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.