Pan Asia Banking Corporation has reported an after tax profit of Rs. 353.4 million for its January - March quarter (1Q’17) recording an increase of 16 percent from the same period last year.
The performance was largely supported by the significant increase in the fee and commission income, slightly lower tax liability and the closer tab kept on the costs. However, the core-banking performance became subdued in response to the tighter credit conditions remained throughout the period.
The bank’s earnings per share was Rs.3.41 by the end of the 1Q’17, slightly less than Rs.3.91 reported in same period of 2016 due to the increase in bank’s equity resulted by the Rs 2 billion rights issue in March 2017 which was promptly oversubscribed.
The bank’s newly appointed Director and Chief Executive Officer, Nimal Tillekeratne said this performance was a true reflection of the bank’s and ability to report consistently higher financial performance even amid challenging conditions. “I am happy to announce our financial performance for the first quarter because the bank operated under less than favourable conditions such as rising interest rates, slowdown in demand for new loans and risk of new addition to non-performing loans.Meanwhile the income tax expense for the period came down by 12% to little under Rs.160 million for the quarter from a year ago as a result of effective tax management.
The bank was able to maintain its Return on Equity (RoE) at 18.95% which is among the highest in the industry, albeit slightly down from 19.97% reported three months ago.
“Now that we have proved that we could deliver even under trying conditions, I am very much confident that Pan Asia Bank could continue to deliver exceptional performance exceeding the stakeholder expectations,” Tillekeratne said in the earnings release.
Commenting further on the recent issue of rights, he confided that the bank could meet the minimum core-capital requirement of Rs.10 billion by the end of 2017 with the strong earnings forecasted for the remainder of the year.
By the end of March 31, 2017, the bank had a core capital base of Rs.8.7 billion and a total capital base of Rs.10.5 billion.
Speaking on the future direction of the bank he said, “We have developed our new three year strategy with a clear focus on serving the diverse financial needs of Sri Lanka’s growing middle income class and also to uplift the Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises segment that are considered as the life blood of the Sri Lanka’s economy”.
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