13th May 2019 08:38
LONDON (Alliance News) - TBC Bank Group PLC, the holding company of JSC TBC Bank Georgia, on Monday reported "robust" profit growth for the first three months of 2019 on the back of strong rise in commission and operating income as well as a positive operating jaws ratio.
Jaws measures the difference between the annual rate of growth in income against costs. The bank's cost to income ratio for the quarter fell by 0.4 percentage point year-on-year to 37.7% from 38.1%.
The Georgian bank recorded pretax profit of GEL136.3 million, or around GBP37.4 million, for the quarter ended March 31, up from GEL108.3 million in the comparative year-ago period, on net interest income of GEL196.9 million and GEL175.4 million, respectively. Net profit amounted to GEL133.2 million versus GEL95.8 million.
Net fee and commission income increased 20% year-on-year to GEL41.8 million, while other operating non-interest income was up 17% to GEL33.2 million.
First quarter net interest margin declined to 6.1% from 6.9% due to the new government regulation limiting the ability to lend money to higher-yield retail customers.
Gross loans and advances to customers increased 23% year-on-year to GEL10.37 billion. Customer deposits amounted to GEL9.17 billion as at March 31, up 20% year-on-year.
"Overall, I am delighted with our first quarter financial and operating results, and I feel confident that we are well-positioned to achieve sustainable growth and to deliver high returns to our shareholders. Therefore, we would like to reiterate our medium-term targets: [return on equity] of above 20%, cost to income ratio below 35%, dividend pay-out ratio of 25% to 35% and loan book growth of 10% to 15%," said TBC Bank Chief Executive Vakhtang Butskhrikidze.
As at March 31, the bank's Basel III tier 1 and total capital adequacy ratios stood at 13.8% and 19.1%, respectively.
London listed shares in TBC Bank were down 0.6% at 1,690.00 pence each on Monday morning.
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