AmBank’s FY18 net profit falls to RM1.13 bln

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KUALA LUMPUR: AMMB Holdings Bhd’s (AmBank) net profit for the financial year ended March 31, 2018 (FY18) fell to RM1.13 billion from RM1.32 billion a year ago.

However, revenue increased to RM8.58 billion from RM8.29 billion previously.

In a statement, group chief executive officer Datuk Sulaiman Mohd Tahir said the group stepped up its income growth momentum and closed FY18 with a growth of 5.7 per cent compared with a 1.9 per cent growth in FY17.

He said income for the fourth quarter 2018 (Q418) reached RM1.07 billion, the highest since Q415.

“Income growth was primarily driven by net interest income (NII), registering an 8.4 per cent increase year-on-year from loans growth of 5.9 per cent and higher interest income from fixed income securities.

“The diversification of our funding mix through increasing non-wholesale deposits composition whilst reducing term funding resulted in a reduction in cost of funds, with net interest margin (NIM) up to two per cent from 1.98 per cent a year ago,” he said.

He said non-interest income (NoII) was broadly flat y-o-y due to significant gains arising from two exceptional transactions in FY17.

Excluding the impact of these normalised items, the group continues to gain traction from its top four focus products, he said, adding that the appointment as Amanah Saham Nasional Bhd’s agent saw its Wealth Management’s NoII recorded an exceptional growth of 63.3 per cent y-o-y, mainly from unit trust and bancassurance commission.

Sulaiman said the bank’s loans and financing base expanded 5.9 per cent y-o-y to RM96.3 billion, supported by a consistent growth in its targeted segments with mortgage loans growing 22.9 per cent, while small and medium enterprise loans grew a robust 19.2 per cent to RM16.7 billion.

He said card receivables, another key growth product, also recorded a double digit growth of 17.6 per cent to RM2.0 billion.

The group customer deposits grew RM1.9 billion or two per cent y-o-y to RM95.8 billion, he said.

“We are pleased that our efforts to diversify our funding mix, with Retail and Business Banking deposits increasing by 24.1 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively.

“This outcome further improved our funding resiliency. Current accounts and savings accounts (CASA) grew by 2.6 per cent y-o-y. We are enhancing our cash management platform, as well as leveraging our new merchant portal to improve our CASA mix from its current 21.3 per cent,” he said.

On another note, the group merchant CASA balance also saw an increase of RM289 million y-o-y, in part due to AmBank becoming the first bank in Malaysia to offer card merchants an instant settlement feature along with real time merchant on-boarding, he said.

On liquidity and capital, he said the group banking subsidiaries had maintained liquidity coverage ratios in excess of the regulatory minimum requirements with aggregated capital adequacy ratio remaining adequate at 16.6 per cent.

Moving forward, digitalisation remains high on the group agenda as it continues to intensify the digital banking experience and services for their valued customers with the official launch of its enhanced internet banking platform, he added. — Bernama