Business

Tuesday March 3, 2009

Bank Islam remains on track to achieve goals


Group posts profit before zakat and tax of RM104mil for H2

PETALING JAYA: Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd remains on track to achieve the remaining goals of its transformation programme after posting “satisfactory” half-year results, said managing director Datuk Zukri Samat.

Including provisions, the Islamic banking group posted a group profit before zakat and tax of RM104.7 mil for the half year ended December 2008.

Without the provisioning for “a one-time IT (information technology) write-off,” its profit rose 11.3% to RM184.9mil from the corresponding period in 2007, the bank said in a statement.

The group’s total revenue for the six months rose to RM625.8mil from RM579.5mil a year earlier.

The increase in revenue was the result of sustained growth in quality financings, in particular consumer banking asset portfolio and the healthy expansion of its deposit-taking business, especially current and saving accounts, Zukri said.

“Consumer financing will remain a key business for Bank Islam, with increased focus on the more profitable segments,” he said. “At the same time plans are being executed to increase growth in other business segments for a more diversified financing asset base.”

The consumer-financing portfolio comprised 62% of Bank Islam’s financing assets, while the corporate and commercial financing assets stood at 24% and 14% respectively.

The bank’s customer deposits rose to RM20.95bil in December 2008, following the introduction of new saving and deposits products to increase the bank’s market share of domestic deposits.

Zukri said “the bank’s capital position remained satisfactory with the group’s risk-weighted capital ration at 13.1%, in line with the domestic banks’ industry average of 12.6% and above the statutory requirement of 8%.”

Bank Islam’s net non-performing financing ratio dropped from 7.8% in June 2008 to 6.4% in December 2008, the lowest since 2005, while its loss coverage ratio improved further to 80.5% from 75.8%.

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